Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses, Second ... - Ktooba.com

The present subjunctive ·20·
MOOD Present subjunctive
TIME Refers to the uncertain present and future
KEY PHRASES Main clause of uncertainty que
STRUCTURE Simple tense: verb base verb ending
Th e subjunctive mood can be defi ned in terms of the situations in which it is used,
oft en described as fi tting into these eight categories.
1 Desire
2 Ignorance
3 Emotional statement or comment
4 Impersonal opinion
5 Uncompleted action
6 Vague or indefi nite antecedent
7 “Perhaps” and “maybe”
8 “Even if ”
Up to this point, we have worked with sentences that are indicative, and they
do what the name implies: Th ey indicate or report something. Consider the following
indicative sentence.
I know that you speak Spanish.
Th e speaker is certain of something (that you speak Spanish) and is reporting that
information.
In every subjunctive sentence, however, there is always some aspect of uncertainty—something
that is not known or not controllable. Consider the subjunctive
sentence below.
I hope that you speak Spanish.
Th e second clause of this sentence is in the subjunctive, because the speaker does
not know that you speak Spanish and is not reporting that you do. Instead, because
the speaker has a desire that you speak Spanish rather than certain knowledge that
you do, this sentence represents the fi rst category of situations listed above for the
subjunctive.
In sentences with a subjunctive clause, there is oft en an indicative clause that
reports desire, ignorance, an emotion, or an impersonal opinion related to the
action in the subjunctive clause.
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