Subjunctive Difference

Question

I am right now learning about summary of the uses of subjunctive. However, I cannot find a way to know just by reading a sentence such as in fill in the blank ... I am not sure when I am suppose to use Present Perfect Subjunctive and just regular Present Subjunctive. And it also goes same for Past Perfect Subjunctive and regular Past Subjunctive.

http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/courses/sequence.htm - bosquederoble, May 7, 2015

The website in the comment above is very helpful. It's a big subject to study. I hope you find it useful. Thanks for having a completed profile! - Jubilado, May 7, 2015

Allow a minimum of 18 months of studying, I think, to be realistic.. - annierats, May 9, 2015

Answer 1

This is an immense subject. After trying hard for months, possibly years, you may develop some feel for this. I suppose looking at links may help, but I recommend reading as many books as you can, because you will gradually see how the subjunctive works and adds feeling to the language.

And yes, after a very long time, I do find that I can at least sometimes use it now, without fear.Sometimes!

If it were possible to answer your question in a few words, I would have done so ( an example of the use of subjunctive in English).

I remember when I was doing my post grad classes in methods of teaching Spanish, one of the things I had to do was observe a master teacher. This teacher was cubana who barely spoke English. I remember an occasion when she was explainng a complex point of - Daniela2041, May 9, 2015

grammar, then stopped in mid sentence trying both the indicative and subjunctive of the verb she was using and couldn't make up her mind. It D O E S get hairy at times. :) - Daniela2041, May 9, 2015

Answer 2

I'm a native speaker and still make mistakes.

I was told to think of it as thinmgs that are out of our control, this helps a bit. Maybe? - annierats, May 9, 2015

Cool word "thinmgs" is that short for "thingamagigs"? (I don't know how to spell it.) - Daniela2041, May 9, 2015

Answer 3

Bosque gave you a good link. Thanks Bosque. When to use what subjunctive in Spanish