¿Te imaginas qué ... ? Indicative or Imperfect Subjunctive?

Question

I recently saw a bit if a show with dialogue that said:

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si entra Santiago y no yo?

Can you imagine what would have happened if Santiago comes in and not me?

I think I would've expected the imperfect subjunctive to be used here with the Si Clause so that it would be:

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si entrara Santiago y no yo?

Can you imagine what would have happened if Santiago came in and not me?

Should it have been the present indicative or was that a mistake by the speaker?

Thanks.

interesting question, :) - 006595c6, Sep 19, 2017

Answer 1

It is a common enough form. I avoid grammar subjects in general, and someone else will tell you if the usage is in fact technically incorrect. Nevertheless, native speakers use it all the time.

The same thing can be expressed in several different ways:

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si entra Santiago y no yo?

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si hubiera entrado Santiago y no yo?

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si llega a entrar Santiago y no yo?

¿Te imaginas qué hubiera pasado si ... (with all of the above variations)

¿Te imaginas lo que hubiera pasado / lo que pasa / la que llega a pasar ...(with all the above variations).

I can think of a few other options, but you get the idea: Spanish is a rich language and people come up with all sorts of ways to say stuff, some of which are textbook grammatically correct, and many of which are questionable at best.

Thanks for your response. I guess this is another one of those things that maybe isn't the textbook way to say something, but nevertheless has to be learned as an accepted, informal way of speaking. Thanks. - patt177, Sep 20, 2017

Answer 2

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si entra Santiago y no yo?

Can you imagine what would have happened if Santiago comes in and not me?

This is a frequent way to say that. First, the action, though hypothetical, is taking place in the context of the sentence, hence indicative. With present tense the speaker invites us to imagine ourselves living within the time frame when the event happened, as we have seen that "possibly" happening. If the speaker wanted to keep the original time frame he would've used "...si entraba Santiago..." (indicative, too)

Another way to think the indicative is a matter of focus. The speaker wants to concentrate in the eventuality of Santiago coming in at the "right" or "wrong" time. The way to understand this focus is going back to the old "a lo mejor": "A lo mejor justo entraba Santiago en ese momento ¡y ya te podrás imaginar lo que habría pasado!"

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si entrara Santiago y no yo?

You can use "...si hubiera entrado Santiago...", to defocus it and just for the hypothetical situation, but "entrara" sounds bad, as it coveys a "forward" notion, like "¿te imaginas lo que pasaría si entrara Santiago y no yo?

Welcome to the forum - Mardle, Sep 21, 2017

Thank you! Glad to be here! - aleCcowaN, Sep 21, 2017

alec!!!! un placer verte en este foro :) - 006595c6, Sep 21, 2017

Welcome, Alec. :) - rac1, Sep 21, 2017

¡Gracias a todos por tan cálida bienvenida! - aleCcowaN, Sep 22, 2017

De nada. :) - rac1, Sep 22, 2017

Answer 3

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si entrara Santiago y no yo?

Can you imagine what would have happened if Santiago came in and not me?

This however is not correct...have a look at Gekko's answer, this option is not mentioned.

Ah okay. Good point. My first instinct was to choose "hubiera entrado", but I was thrown off by use of the present tense originally. Thanks for catching that. - patt177, Sep 20, 2017

Answer 4

¿Te imaginas qué habría pasado si entra Santiago y no yo?

Can you imagine what would have happened if Santiago comes in and not me?

Very typical in Spanish, we often use the present simple to refer to a past event.

Look:

Ayer estuve en el cine...y me viene el acomodador y me quiere echar de mi asiento, decía que estaba cogido por otra persona. ¡Vaya borde!

I can't remember what exactly we call this: I think presente dramático, it is often used by writers.

Yeah, I see what you mean here. It wasn't the present used for the past that threw me, though, since we have that in English, too. It was that particular phrase that seems to work in Spanish but sounds weird in English and so isn't transferable. - patt177, Sep 20, 2017