Subjunctive use here?

Question

"I have not been able to forget that night you said goodbye."

does this translate to:

"No he podido olvidar aquella noche que tú despidiste."

or:

"No he podido olvidar aquella noche que tú despidieras."

or something else?

Thank you, Mitchell

Answer 1

Use indicative:

No he podido olvidar aquella noche que tú te despediste.

"Aquella noche que te despediste"???? Are you sure? - lazarus1907, Aug 3, 2011

Answer 2

Or something else?

Something else:

No he podido olvidar aquella noche en la que tú te despidiste.

You are declaring what happened that night as a time reference, so indicative is compulsory.

So, my sentence is not correct? It seems like you can say it both way in English: "that night that you said goodbye" and "that night on which you said goodbye". Is this not the case in Spanish? - gintar77, Aug 3, 2011

both ways* - gintar77, Aug 3, 2011

Answer 3

I would probably just use the indicative here. Maybe you could use the subjunctive if you considered that the "I have not been able to forget" part implied a strong emotion. We'll see what one of our native speakers says!

I don't know about the Spanish but the English would imply strong emotion to me. - MaryMcc, Aug 3, 2011

Not every phrase with strong emotion needs subjunctive. For example, "Creo que te amo". I think I love you. Very strong emotion, but it uses indicative. - gintar77, Aug 3, 2011

You think? :) Thank you Gintar, J - Jeremias, Aug 3, 2011

Answer 4

My guess is:

No he podido olvidar la noche cuando te me despidieras.

"... cuando te despediste". - lazarus1907, Aug 3, 2011

Gracias. - lorenzo9, Aug 4, 2011