es VS sea?
"Mi padre es muy bueno. Aunque sea un poco serio y algunas veces callado, es un padre muy paciente, muy simpático y considerado"
When to use "sea"? why can't i use "es"?
muchas gracias!!
8 Answers
I think "aunque sea" is more like, even though he can be a little serious....... like, even though he might be a little serious. I'm thinking tt gives a little leverage versus being a straight up fact about the guy.
I could be wrong though.
sea is a subjunctive mood of ser. I would use it as you did because you're expressing an opinion of how your father can be.
You can use either the indicative or subjunctive in that sentence. Using 'sea' is perhaps a bit more condescending while 'es' is a bit more aseptic, but again, the difference isn't too great.
You can use "es" there. I think that "es" makes more sense, no?
sea is a subjunctive mood of ser. I would use it as you did because you're expressing an opinion of how your father can be.
statements of opinion and the subjunctive
But statements of opinion — even when the opinion is expressed with less than full certainty — require the indicative mood.
@Gfreed: Aunque seas gruñón, yo te banco. (un chiste) Did I just state my opinion? I think what that site is saying is that an outright declaration of opinion is the same as an outright declaration of fact and should be treated as such (me parece que, creo que) (el hecho es que) whereas an implied opinion such as the one in the first sentence, and in the original question, can be "made implied" by the use of subjunctive. Of course that is all speculation, everything I post is interpreted through my daily learnings and my mind and not really book learned so I could be wrong, it's just my opinion. 
Or maybe it's just the Aunque which triggers it all, but I don't think Lazarus would like that explanation much. Something about the meaning behind it all and not the trigger itself, but I can't remember exactly.
Qué estés bien amigo....
You are declaring that he is patient, nice, and considerate even though he sometimes exhibits other traits that might contradict that according to some people. The things that you are declaring are in the indicative, the others in the subjunctive.
It is explained under definition 1b here
Hi katherinecha!
I think that I made the 'correction' yesterday. Just to clarify:
why can't i use "es"?
No, I didn't want to say that. You can use both tenses here, as Jeezz, Bill, lorenzo, Q and others... have pointed above. The main reason to change it was that the phrase "mi padre es" appeared a lot of times repeated in the text, and it seemed to me that "sea" could be a better choice to avoid repetitions. In my opinion (just in my opinion), "sea" also gave the text naturalness in that context.
I hope this has not been messy to anybody!
