A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
Führe sie nur öfter Rad, brauchte sie weniger Blutdruckmedikamente.
If she would just bike more often, she would need less blood-pressure
medication.
Unit: 15: Subjunctive II
6. “As If” Clauses
In German, “as if” clauses are expressed by als ob or als wenn or als followed by
the subjunctive form of the verb. For example,
Das Kind sieht aus, als ob es krank wäre.
The child looks as if it were ill.
Der Manager tat, als wenn er entlassen worden wäre.
The manager acted as if he had been fired.
Es schien, als hätten wir den ganzen Tag geschlafen.
It seemed as if we had slept the whole day.
Unit: 15: Subjunctive II
7. Subjunctive II Forms of Modal Verbs
In Unit 10 we dealt with the modal verbs, dürfen, können, müssen, mögen, sollen
and wollen and we learned that the lack of an umlaut on conjugated forms of the
first four was an indicator of simple past tense. When an umlaut does occur, that
indicates the subjunctive II mood:
dürfte
könnte
müßte
möchte
would be allowed to / might
would be able to / could
would have to
would like to
Sollte and wollte do not differ visually from their indicative simple past forms. They
mean “should” or “would be supposed to,” and “would want to,” respectively.