Spanish Tenses
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[edit] Subjunctive
Colloquial spanish is peppered with subjunctives. There are several situations that require the use of a subjunctive:
- After a verb of wishing, wanting, requesting, forbidding, commanding, instucting or verbs of emotion when the subjects are different
Eg. gustar, desear, querer, sentir, pedir, estar contento de, estar alegre de, decir, rogar, preferir, prohibir, sorprender, molestar.
- After a negative or indefinite antecedent
E.g. nada, nadie, alguien.
- After some impersonal verbs, is referring to a specific person or event
E.g. Es necesario que, Es posible que, Es imposible que, Es probable que, Es mejor que.
- After a conjunction of time, when what comes after is in the future
E.g. cuando, en cuanto, mientras, asi que
To form the subjunctive, you have to look at the tense that the sentence is in. If it is in the present or future, the Present Subjunctive is used. If it is in the past, the Imperfect Subjunctive is used.
[edit] Present Subjunctive
The stem of the Present subjunctive is formed by taking the first person singular of the present tense, and taking off the "o"
E.g. Hablar -> Hablo -> Habl
Now we have the stem, we add the endings:
- For an "ar" verb: e, es, e, emos, eis, en.
- For an "er" or "ir" verb: a, as, a, amos, ais, an.
There are several irregularities to the rule, as many verbs don't end in "o" in the 1st person singular of the present tense. Their stems are irregular, and are unpredictable
dar estar haber ir saber ser dé esté haya vaya sepa sea des estés hayas vayas sepas seas dé esté haya vaya sepa sea demos estemos hayamos vayamos sepamos seamos deis estéis hayáis vayáis sepáis seáis den estén hayan vayan sepan sean
[edit] Imperfect Subjunctive
To form the stem of the imperfect subjunctive, we take the third person plural of the preterite, and take off the "ron".
E.g. Hablar -> Hablaron -> Habla
Then, onto this stem we add the endings. There are two sets, and it doesn't matter which one you use, as they both give the same meaning:
- ra, ras, ra, ramos, rais, ran
- se, ses, se, semos, seis, sen
[edit] N.B. Si Clauses
One of the trickiest aspects of the subjunctive to master is the use of the imperfect subjunctive in si clauses. You don't require an imperfect subjunctive if both verbs are in the present.
E.g. If it rains I do not walk home ~ Si llueve, no vuelvo a casa a pie.
Similiarly, you don't need to use a subjunctive if one of the verbs is in the present and the other is in the future.
E.g. If it rains I will not walk home ~ Si llueve, no volveré a casa a pie.
However, if one of the verbs is in the conditional tense, then the other will be in the imperfect subunctive. In English, it refers to something hypothetical.
E.g. If were not raining I would walk home ~ Si no lloveriera, volvería a casa a pie.
