I need help with 2 subjunctive examples

Question

Hello,

I'm currently learning subjunctive, but I don't understand why subjunctive is used in these two sentences:

1. Después de que me bañe, voy a vestirme.

-I thought that in order to use "después de que," there needs to be two different subjects. But, there is only one subject in this sentence.

1. En caso de que Uds. no tengan nada que hacer mañana, ¿podemos ir al cine?

-Is subjunctive being used because of the "we" with "podemos ir al cine"?

Thank you!

Welcome to SpanishDict. It would help us to give you better answers if we knew your language abilities. Please fill those areas out in your profile. Thanks. - rac1, Aug 21, 2014

Answer 1

First example:

I wish people would quit saying you only use subjunctive with change in subject. If you don't have a subject change, you don't need to use subjunctive solely because you can use an infinitive instead. If you don't (ie you actively choose not to for some reason) you still need subjunctive if the clause would otherwise require subjunctive. Most of the time a native Spanish speaker is going to choose the easier infinitive (and think it is weird if you don't):

Después de bañarme, voy a vestirme. After bathing I am going to get dressed. This is the normal way to express this.

Después de que me bañe, voy a vestirme. After I bathe myself, I am goint to get dressed. Or: After he/she bathes me I am going to get dressed.

A Spanish speaker might even assume there is a subject change if there is no context, and wonder who is bathing you.

So if you do choose to conjugate it it is better if you aren't changing the subject to say:

Después de que yo me bañe, voy a vestirme. This is grammatically correct but not the way a Spanish speaker will normally choose to express this.

In the second, I don't even see why there is a question- you have a que clause with an indefinite future unrealized postulation. That always needs subjunctive, even if you followed it with the same subject.

En caso de que Uds. no tengan nada que hacer mañana, pueden ir al cine. In the event that you all don't have anything to do tomorrow, you all can go to the cinema.

Give up this subject change thing, it is not helpful except to remind you that when you don't have a subject change you might be able to just use an infinitive in the place of the subjunctive.

The sentence I wrote you could say "en caso de no tener nada que hacer mañana, pueden ir al cine." Again because there is no subject change.hihow you to change the subjunctive to an infinitive.