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The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Spanish has many tenses and other forms for verbs, but the endings attached to the “stem” are generally short. The Present Subjunctive is one more “form” of the verb. Look at the following present subjunctive form for all six persons. Which Spanish verb do they correspond to?
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Right, the verb “hablar”. Except for the “yo” form, you must recognize the endings! Think of this as a trick! -AR verbs use the endings of –ER verbs! It almost looks like there is a verb “habler” in Spanish, but there isn’t.
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish We’ve already used the tú form hables! Where? Right, for the negative tú commands! That doesn’t at all mean that this command is a subjunctive, but we can say that this command uses one of the six “subjunctive forms”.
The Familiar Command So, no hables means “don’t speak”, for example when being bossy to a gabby friend. (Note that the opposite command, habla is NOT a subjunctive form.)
The Formal Command Well, guess what! The formal command uses a subjunctive form when you want to shut your professor up, for example:Profesor, por favor no hable.
The Formal Command But beware, even with the por favor it may come across as an impolite sentence, even though the command is grammatically “polite”. To make amends, you may want to order the opposite:Profesor, por favor hable.
The Formal Command So, the third person singular form provides you with both a positive and a negative command to use, for example with people of authority with whom you’d probably not expect to give commands anyway. But there are situations, for example someone may be in danger!
The Formal Command Remember to place any direct, indirect or reflexive pronouns in their correct place, and put an accent mark whenever the stress of the word ends up on the third syllable from the end: ¡Búsquelo! ¡No lo bailes! ¡Lávese!
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Let’s leave the topic on formal commands on the “back burner”. Hablemos de esos más tarde. Let’s first understand how to get the Present Subjunctive forms for any verb. Let’s start with the –AR verbs. (The following conjugation looks like a prayer:)
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Here are the steps: Step 1: Take the present tense “yo” form you are familiar with and chop off the “o” ending. habl
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Step 2: If we have an –AR verb, then add the familiar present tense endings for –ER verbs. For the new yo form, use the third person singular (él) form.
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Let’s generalize Step 2 to any verb: Step 2: If we have an –AR verb, then add the familiar present tense endings for –ER verbs. If we don’t have an –AR verb, then add the –AR endings. For the new yo form, use the third person singular (él) form.
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Wow! Looks like there’s a verb escribar in Spanish, but really there isn’t.
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Because of this rule, any stem-changes that occur in the familiar present tense also occur in the present subjunctive…
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish …and any verb that has an irregular yoform in the familiar present tense, has an irregular subjunctive form for all persons.
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Careful to make the usual spelling changes that keeps the sound of the last consonant of the stem intact!
The Present Subjunctive in Spanish Now that we know how to get the subjunctive forms, let us see how we can use the ellos form for something.
The Plural Formal Command If all the cabinet ministers of the president of some South American democracy invade your home at night, you may say: ¡Salgan de aquí!
The Present Subjunctive “Form” So, we’ve made use of several of the subjunctive forms WITHOUT using the SUBJUNCTIVE. In the next presentation, we will be using the SUBJUNCTIVE.
The Present Subjunctive “Form” What use does the nosotros subjunctive form have without using it as a SUBJUNCTIVE? ¡Salgamos de aquí! (shouted out by a Minister of Education)
