Should/can I use subjunctive in this sentence?

Question

I am attempting to translate the sentence "* In order to create this desire in the people, companies mainly use advertising*"...

So far, I have this: "Para crear el deseo en la gente, la empresas pueden utilizan publicidad."

I would be grateful if anyone can comment on this translation and also advise me if i should use subjunctive for either crear or utilizan. ??

Thanks in advance.

Zac.

Answer 1

No.

Crear should remain in the infinitive form

Also, you have two conjugated verbs (pueden and utilizan) within the same clause which generally should be avoided. Here, based on your English sentence, I don't think that the verb "poder" is really necessary, neither is the subjunctive. These are just suggestions:

Para inculcar este deseo en a la gente, las empresas, por lo general, pueden utilizan publicidad recurre a publicar anuncios.

A couple of questions you can ask yourself which can often help to determine whether the subjunctive is needed are (1) can the clause be taken as a declaration and (2) is the clause referring to a hypothetical or contrary to current fact situation.

If the first is true then you will usually find that the indicative is required, and if the second is true then you will generally use the subjunctive. For example, in English, the meat of your sentence is:

Companies use advertising (in order to accomplish some goal).

In this case, you are stating or declaring that companies do in fact use advertising. The same is true of the Spanish sentence which is why the indicative is called for. Consider what effect it has on your statement if it were changed to one of the following:

?It's possible for companies to use advertising....

?It's possible that some companies might use advertising....

Here you are not making a declaration that companies do in fact use advertise but only that the possibility exists. In fact with this statement, you are instead referring to a hypothetical situation or a situation which does not yet, and may not ever necessarily occur. When referring to hypothetical situations such as this, you would need to employ the subjunctive.

This is brilliant, and that's a great way of getting to grips with the subjunctive. - zgparsons, Feb 21, 2011

Oh, and muchas gracias lzanoni1. - zgparsons, Feb 21, 2011

Glad you found it helpful (Oh, and welcome to the forum!). - Izanoni1, Feb 21, 2011

Good answer! A couple of things regarding the translation: it's inculcar _en_ (why did you change it?), and las empresas recurr_en_ :) - Vikingo, Feb 21, 2011

Answer 2

My guess:

Para producir este deseo en la gente, las empresas utilizan principalmente la publicidad.