Imperfect subjunctive after clause in present tense

Question

Hi,

So throughout my Spanish education, I've been taught that if a verb or phrase in the independent clause triggers the subjunctive, and that triggering verb or phrase is in the present, present perfect, or future tense, and the dependent clause is referring to a previous event/action, the present perfect subjunctive is to be used.

However, I have seen the imperfect subjunctive used instead of the present perfect subjunctive in dependent clause in places such as literature and in other online message boards. For example, in the Spanish version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a character says: "Espero que todo saliera bien." I've also seen posts where someone puts "haya dormido/durmiera" to indicate that one has the option of either one.

Is there a grammatical explanation for this? Is one "more right" than the other?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Don't spend to much time trying to figure why certain things don't fit into the grammatical categories your Spanish book or your teacher said they would, because in everyday speech grammar is sometimes (often) thrown out the window.

Continue to make observations as you have been and instead of asking people about the grammar, take the specific examples and ask them how they would say it. Over time you'll pick up a "feel" for what's right, or at least what's commonly used.

Chileno provided you a good example of that. He doesn't know the rules, but he certainly knows how things are commonly said. Just like us with English. There are probably only a handful of people that aren't English teachers that can tell you the why's and why not's of the language but the vast majority of us know what sounds right.

Answer 2

For me:

Espero que todo salga bien.

Me alegro de que todo saliera/saliese bien

Espero que duerma bien

Me alegro de que hubiera dormido bien

Me alegro de que durmiera/durmiese bien.

All of those would be correct for me as a native "user"

Keep in mind I don't know my own grammar.

Answer 3

As far as I understand you normally would follow a governing clause in the present tense with the present perfect subjunctive to refer to a past action.

Espero que todo haya salido bien.

Having said that, rules are meant to be broken and you will more often than not find differing regional uses so I can't tell you that its categorically wrong and you'll never hear/read it, in fact you already have lol.

So let's see what other feedback you get.