"Chicos, tan pronto como se pongan....." why subjunctive?
Hello, why is this sentence subjunctive?
"Chicos, tan pronto como se pongan los zapatos, podremos salir.
My book taught me that the subj. doesn't always follow 'tan pronto como'. But in this situation, I thought it would be "se ponen".
13 Answers
"Tan pronto como" does not take the subjunctive when referring to a past event.
When it refers to a future event, it generally does.
It is quite similar to "cuando" in this regard.
Tan pronto como se pusieron los zapatos, salimos. This sentence refers to the past, and it is a real event, with no uncertainty implied.
As soon as you (pl) put your shoes on, we left.
But,
Tan pronto como se pongan los zapotos, podremos salir.
When you put your shoes on, which you haven't done yet and might possibly not do, we can leave. The element of uncertainty expressed, as it is a future event, requires the subjunctive.
When an action that follows has not yet been completed, certain expressions will always invoke the subjunctive. Here is a list I found:
a menos que ... unless ...
antes (de) que ... before ...
con tal (de) que ... provided that ...
en caso de que ... in case ...
para que ... so that ...
sin que ... without
article on subjunctive in adverbial clauses Includes adverbial time conjunction tan pronto como
Jeremias dijo: "Tan pronto como" does not take the subjunctive when referring to a past event.
Gosh I hate rules like that! It's probably exactly right, but those make it so complicated!
I took one look at Erin's sentence and thought, "Well yeah, you need the subjunctive there." But I could not have begun to quote the rule above. I probably would have struggled with answering the question of "why" it needs the subjunctive.
It just does. LOL.
But Jeremias gets a vote from me for knowing that. 
If you go to the headings at the top of this page and click on More, you'll get a drop-down menu that includes the heading Reference. In Reference you'll find a great explanation of uses of subjunctive (under Spanish verbs.)
Jeremias solved your first question well, and Qfreed finished it off. As far as the second one...
Lazarus explained that si is different. Reading his post, and the previous link, I hope it will help the following make sense to you.
Si ella trae la comida, iremos a la playa. = If she brings the food, *(we will go to the beach.)
Si ella trajera la comida, iríamos a la playa = If she were to bring the food, we would go to the beach. (right now)
Si ella hubiera traído la comida, habríamos ido a la playa. = If she had brought the food, we would have gone to the beach.
*Typing error, I had omitted that part before. Sorry, my backspace key sometimes deletes whole words instead of just letters.
I hope this helps
Erin said:
Ok, I've read through Lazarus's paragraph a few times and I'm still lost. I don't understand why one of these sentences is subj. and the other one isn't. :(
Si ella trae la comida, iremos a la playa.
Tan pronto como se pongan los zapatos, podremos salir.
Because one of the sentences uses the nexus "si", and the other one uses "tan pronto como".
I've read some of your questions regarding the subjunctive, and I sympathize . The thing is that even though people will try to help you by explaining the subjunctive in very broad terms, using basic dichotomies or simple mnemonics, the sad fact is that the subjunctive is also very much based on the sentence structure in question. Look at these examples:
Si me vuelves a llamar tonto, te parto la cara. Como me vuelvas a llamar tonto, te parto la cara.
One is indicative, the other is subjunctive. The devil is in the details, as we know. A few years ago I decided to buy a book or two about the subjunctive, and after some research I found that "El subjuntivo: valores y usos" by Borrego et al, and "El subjuntivo en español" by Maria Angeles Sastre were two of the most authoritative ones. I bought both, but my favorite is the first one. It doesn't explain everything (of course), but it's nevertheless an oasis of real knowledge where we're otherwise getting used to being served wrong or incomplete explanations.
Good luck
Because as soon as one actions happens then the other action can take place.
Because after one action takes place then the second can happen.
In other words, because one action is waiting to happens after/before another happens.
Después que te pongas lo zapatos podremos salir - After you putting your shoes, we will be able to go out.
Antes de que te acuestes, te vas a lavar la cara. - Before you going to bed, you are going to wash your face.
Ok, I've read through Lazarus's paragraph a few times and I'm still lost. I don't understand why one of these sentences is subj. and the other one isn't. :(
Si ella trae la comida, iremos a la playa.
Tan pronto como se pongan los zapatos, podremos salir.
pescador 1 said the following on a related question about the subjunctive "Normally "después de que" would only be followed by the subjunctive if you were talking about an anticipated/uncompleted event."
So "saldremos tan pronto como se pongan la polera", means that they are waiting for the action of putting their shirt on to go out.
**> Tan pronto como se pongan los zapotos,
podremos salir.**
When you put your shoes on, which you haven't done yet and might possibly not do, we can leave. The element of uncertainty expressed, as it is a future event, requires the subjunctive.
I understand that reasoning until this sentence (from my lesson book): "Si ella trae la comida, iremos a la playa."
She hasn't brought the food yet, and possibly might not bring it. So it seems this sentence has an element of uncertainty regarding a future event. But it's not subjunctive.
?
She hasn't brought the food yet, and possibly might not bring it. So it seems this sentence has an element of uncertainty regarding a future event. But it's not subjunctive.
Subjunctive has nothing to do with uncertainty; the sooner you accept that, the better. The conjunction "si" basically explores the consequences of a situation that it is, for discursive purposes, taken for granted, and therefore, declared. If the condition is never going to happen or it is unlikely to happen, then you use imperfect subjunctive. You see, this conjunction is not a temporal one, like "cuando" or "tan pronto", that refer to events that may have existed or not, but used for logical statements. If the condition is met, the you can declare it, and then we state the consequences; if it is not met, then forget about the consequences. If it can't be met, then don't declare it (hence the subjunctive).
Erin
With your food example, in English if you use or don't use the subjunctive it alters the meaning of the phrase
Subjunctive: If she brings food I may go to the beach. (at this time I have not decided to go to the beach)
Future: (If she brings food I will go to the beach. (I have decided to go to the beach when the food arrives)
Perhaps the same thing happens in Spanish.
Hi Erin
I am sure that the subjunctive is used here due to an uncompleted action.
