Past Subjunctive not always refers to past?
I'm getting the hang of the past subjunctive. I can conjugate it, and in some cases 
I even know how to use it. Maybe I'm getting hung up on the name of the tense/mood but am I correct that the past subjunctive doesn't always refer to the past? For instance if I say: Quisiera tomar un café" I'm politely asking for something that I might want, not that I wanted. There are other instances of this that I'm not remembering right now.
5 Answers
Don't let the name mislead you. If I had named the tense, I would have called it "mental subjunctive", rather than past subjunctive, because it can be used to conjure mental scenarios that you can't declare... because you don't think they are true (often because they are hypothetical or impossible). These imaginary scenarios can take place any time in the past, present or future, e.g. "Si pudiera volar me iría a la playa".
The polite "quisiera" is a special case that only applies to three verbs (see below), and it exploits the idea that the request is just an idea you have in your mind, but since it is subjunctive, you don't even declare that you are really going to ask for it, as if asking directly were too daring. A same polite can be achieved with a mental tense in indicative: the imperfect, e.g. "Quería un kilo de patatas..."
The imperfect subjunctive is used in place of the conditional in some polite phrases, especially quisiera--in Ecuador the conditional form of querer is not used.
Careful! In polite phrases only with three verbs: querer, poder, deber.
You are correct, the imperfect subjunctive is a "past tense"verb that doesn't always refer to the past. And it's the same in English.
Si tuviera un millon de dolares, sería rico.
If I had a million dollars, I would be rich. Had is a past tense verb, is it not?
Si fuera rico, compraría una casa nueva.
If I were rich, I would buy a new house. Again, "were" is a past tense verb.
The imperfect subjunctive is used in place of the conditional in some polite phrases, especially quisiera--in Ecuador the conditional form of querer is not used.
The correspondence between what the tenses are called in Spanish and in English is not very strong. For example, the future tense can be used to refer to things in the past, present, or future and doesn't mean "will (verb)" the way we think of the future tense in English.
This I understand. But it the case of quisiera - I'm not using the past at all (as I understand it). I'm saying that I might want something (now or in the future). Not that I had or have wanted something.
Yes you are. Quisiera tener un carro = I would like to have a car.
Would is a past tense verb in English. (Though not in this sentence)
Of course you are correct, you're not really using it as a past tense verb in either the English or the Spanish. But it's still there in both.
Thank you. I thought it might be a case of being to hung up on the name of tense/mood. It is one reason I liked Michel Thomas so much. He doesn't focus on the names of the tenses, and now I see why not. It didn't bother me at all that we can refer to the future by using the present as in "I call you tomorrow". I don't know why the "past" subjunctive referring to the present or future hit a snag in my brain.
