Tienen/Tengan

Question

Hola a todos!

Una pequeña pregunta para vosotros...

"...Así podrán aprender más, y tal vez en el futuro veamos que los estudiantes tengan ganas de ir a la escuela."

"This way they'll be able to learn more, and perhaps in the future we'll see that students are excited to go to school."

No estoy 100% cierto, pero creo que necesitamos utilizar el subjuntivo aquí porque es una acción en el futuro, y no la podemos declarar, ¿no?

Gracias por vuestra ayuda.

Answer 1

Since I don't know grammar I can only tell you what it means in English.

Así podrán aprender más, y tal vez en el futuro veamos que los estudiantes tengan ganas de ir a la escuela." = Thus/that way they will be able to learn more, and maybe in the future let's see that the students be excited of going to school.

Meaning that we need to provide, in the future, every possible mean to them so that they have the drive/be enthused to attend school.

Am I making sense?

Yes, and as always thank you Chileno! - BradyLabuda, May 21, 2013

Answer 2

Chileno makes a good point by using the English subjunctive be, which indicates that subjunctive should be used for both verbs ver and tener.

It may be just personal preference, but I don´t like using a lot of subjunctive verbs so close to one another, so I would change this a little bit to "Así podrán aprender más, y tal vez en el futuro veamos estudiantes con ganas de ir a la escuela."

However, it is possible and correct to use future tense in this case, but with both verbs in future, ie "Así podrán aprender más, y tal vez en el futuro veremos estudiantes que tendrán ganas de ir a la escuela." To have one clause subjunctive and one future sounds a little awkward.

Note this usage from "Las Cerezas" por Los Hermanos Carrión:

"Tal vez el sol, sobre tus labios, se posará"

"Y tu boquita día tras día, madurará "

Answer 3

Either the subjunctive or the indicative may work in your example:

Así podrán aprender más, y tal vez en el futuro veamos que los estudiantes tengan ganas de ir a la escuela." You are expressing a desire, hence the subjunctive is the perfect tense for that.

But if you said:

Así podrán aprender más, y tal vez en el futuro veamos que los estudiantes tendrán ganas de ir a la escuela." You would be expressing a more definitive prediction or almost an affirmation.

There is no right or wrong answer to your great question. Thanks for sharing it with the forum!

You proposal is not correct and used the future, even though is talking about the future. Only the subjunctive is allowed in that particular construction. - chileno, May 21, 2013

Answer 4

Thank you Jubilado!

I had to look that one up before writing it as well. Here's an excerpt from a thread on WordReference that I found:

"It is indeed incorrect, as "espero que" mandates the subjunctive.

"Espero que sea una película de acción." -> "I hope that it will be an action film." "Creo que será una película de acción." -> "I believe that it will be an action film."

It may be somewhat difficult to wrap your head around the concept (it took me quite some time, at least), but the present subjunctive is also used in reference to future events.

Here's the link: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1001311

I don't doubt your correction, though. That post was written by a non native anyway. Maybe Chileno or Franco could help us out here?

Thanks for the link. Sometimes we use the present when the Spanish mind is using the present subjunctive in reference to the future especially after cuando. - Jubilado, May 21, 2013

Answer 5

Creo que tiene razón. El uso del subjuntivo es correcto pero es porque hay duda después de la frase "tal vez en el futuro veremos (use aquí el tiempo futuro) que..."