Conditional vs Subjunctive in a sentence

Question

If said, "I need a favor please, could you take these letters to the Post Office?". That sentence is just using the conditional tense, right? But if I changed it to "I need a favor please, I need you to take these letters to the Post Office.", the subjunctive would now be used because I need you to..........is a desire or want, correct?

1) Necesito un favor por favor, podrías tomar estas cartas al correo? (No subjunctive).

2) Necesito un favor por favor, Necesito que tú tomes estas cartas al correo. (Subjunctive)

Answer 1

Translating this from English makes it very wordy in Spanish. It would be more natural to say "¿Me haces el favor de llevar estas cartas al correo?"

Hola JC and how about - hágame el favor de .. - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 10, 2013

Of couse, MC, but now you are using imperative :-) - 005faa61, Apr 10, 2013

true, but I get the feeling that rather than being demaning in Spanish it actually sounds quite polite and could infact be said in place of 'could you please' - what do you think? - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 10, 2013

The two use completely different intonation, so I see very little difference in politness, however, imperative in this case has a more formal nuance - 005faa61, Apr 10, 2013

(ups, demanding) - yes, the point I was trying to make is that 'hágame el favor' without por favor sounds much more polite than its direct translation into English of 'do me a favour and ...' - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 10, 2013

¡Gracias! Es mejor, espero que bfpsu lo aprecie la respuesta como yo. - Jubilado, Apr 10, 2013

Thanks - bfpsu, Apr 11, 2013

MC, for me it feels more demanding - with or without "por favor" to use imperative, unless you say it with a question tag, ie "sale?" . I don´t feel polite and formal are the same. Imperative uses statement intonation and direct uses question intonation - 005faa61, Apr 11, 2013

Answer 2

Your sentences look fine to me and your understanding of the differences is also correct. You also correctly used the conditional for poder in the first sentence. I would make one suggestion: you don't need tú in sentence 2.

Ok thanks for the response - bfpsu, Apr 10, 2013

Answer 3

It is not common to use "poder" while making most requests -- it seems to be an English habit. I think there was a post about a week ago regarding such.