Past subjunctive use - habría / hubiera

Question

HI all!

I've always used text book conditional sentences such as:

Si me lo hubieras pedido, te habría ayudado o si me lo pidieras, te habría ayudado

But it seems that here in Madrid (perhaps in all Spanish speaking countries?) it's more typical to express the same, in the following way:

te hubiera ayudado (without any 'si' clause)

My question is really this: Are both the sentences above expressing more or less the same idea? Also, presumably if I want to use a 'si' clause with the second example, I wouldn't be able to use 'hubiera/hubiese', but rather 'habria' ?

thanks!

Answer 1

Well, in both English and Spanish this is a pretty 'heavy' structure in terms of grammatical demands, and natives break rules in both languages.

In English, people often use past simple when they should use past perfect.

"If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake" (not correct, but heard).

In Spanish, it's very common (incorrect but accepted) to use 'hubiera' in both clauses. This is not possible with 'hubiese', possibly because it sounds too distinct from 'habría' whereas 'hubiera' kind of passes!

With relation to your specific example, I think in both languages it's also possible to say "I would have helped you" without an if clause, as long as the conditional is implicit.

A: I should have called you to say I needed a hand. B: Yeah, I would have helped you.

Answer 2

In the case of contrary to fact conditional structures, such as the one you have given as an example, Spanish speakers often convert the conditional into the subjunctive in the "then" clause of the sentence, as you have observed. It isn't grammatically correct, however. This isn't because the "si" clause is omitted. It can happen even with the "si" clause intact. It might be more common when the "si" clause is omitted, but that is something I wouldn't know.

Thank you! very informative :) - albo181, Feb 11, 2012