Advanced Subjunctive Flashcards

Grade 11 · Spanish · Flashcards

Essential paradigms, triggers, and sequence-of-tenses rules for the Spanish subjunctive mood.

Flashcards

Subjunctive mood: Expresses doubt, desire, emotion, or hypothetical situations — contrast with indicative (objective facts).
WEIRDO: Mnemonic for subjunctive triggers: Wishes, Emotions, Impersonal expressions, Recommendations, Doubt/Denial, Ojala.
Present subjunctive formation: Yo-form present indicative: drop -o, add opposite-vowel endings.
-AR present subjunctive endings: -e, -es, -e, -emos, -eis, -en
-ER/-IR present subjunctive endings: -a, -as, -a, -amos, -ais, -an
Imperfect subjunctive formation: Ellos preterite: drop -ron, add -ra, -ras, -ra, -ramos, -rais, -ran.
Sequence of tenses: Present/future main leads to present subjunctive; Past/conditional main leads to imperfect subjunctive.
Present perfect subjunctive: haya/hayas/haya/hayamos/hayais/hayan + past participle — completed action in present subjunctive context.
Past perfect subjunctive: hubiera + past participle — used in past contrary-to-fact si clauses and result clauses.
Contrary-to-fact conditional: Si + imperfect subjunctive + conditional (present); Si + past perfect subjunctive + conditional perfect (past).
Indicative triggers (no subjunctive): Es obvio que, Es evidente que, Esta claro que, Creo que (affirmative), Se que.
Ojala: Always triggers subjunctive; present: Ojala llegue; past: Ojala hubiera llegado.
Change of subject rule: Subjunctive is only triggered in a two-clause structure when the subjects of the main and dependent clauses differ.