What´s the difference between fuera and fuese?
So the only topic in Spanish that I really have never been able to understand is fuera vs. fuese. I know how to conjugate both tenses but don´t understand the difference in how they are used. I have asked numerous friends who are all native speakers, and the only answer I get is "Fuese is more formal, archaic Spanish, for literature only". I know there has to be a better explanation though, but I can´t figure it out. Thanks in advance.
7 Answers
A little bit of history first: The -ra form comes from the pluperfect of indicative in Latin, and the -se comes from the pluperfect of subjunctive in Latin. Today both are regarded as imperfect subjunctive in Spanish, and when they are used to express subjunctive, they are perfectly interchangeable, and although each country has some sort of preference towards one or another (-ra is more popular), both are perfectly understood.
Now, because the -ra form was originally used for indicative, it still retains some indicative uses that -se never had. For example, you can use the imperfect subjunctive with the verbs querer, deber -and less often, poder- instead of the conditional tense, i.e. "querría" = "quisiera". Of course, you cannot say "quisiese" in this case.
Because this form used to be the pluperfect of indicative in the past in the Middle Ages (up to the XIII-XIV centuries), you can find in all books sentences like "la casa que viera" ("la casa que había visto"). In the 19th century, writers decided to revive this use that had disappeared, because of its romantic old flavour, and nowadays newspapers seem to be very fond of it, just to confuse foreigners, I suppose. This use barely exists in spoken Spanish, and most grammars heavily criticize this use, because they say that it unnecesarily complicates an already complicated verb system.
Another use of the -ra form is to be able to replace the conditional in conditional sentences, e.g. "Si puediera hacerlo, lo hiciera (=haría)". This is considered archaic in most places, and some people will feel that it is just wrong because they have never heard it before. However, the pluperfect subjunctive in -ra instead of the conditional perfect is much more common: SI hubiera podido hacerlo, lo hubiera hecho (= lo habría hecho)".
Does this help'
The form -ra can be use both for subjunctive, and all the other uses I mentioned before, whereas the -se form can only be used to express subjunctive. Therefore, you can replace -se with -ra whenever you want, but not the other way around, so you can speak perfect Spanish without ever using -se at all.
So, why using -se at all? Well... you can break the monotony of too many -ra endings in a text or a poem, by changing from -ra to se, or find a rhyme.
Could I Ask is this case: Queriasmos que esa fuese undertake contribution al gremio..... The case of fuese means what you have said, am I right? Thanks a lot.
i am argentine and it's the same.
Gosh lazarus. That's amazing.
I don't think the -se form is used much in S.America but in Spain people use it. I'm struggling through some Asimov short stories in Spanish and the translator uses the --se form almost exclusively.
I seem to remember 'fuera lo que fuese' (')from Harry Potter (come what may') so I guess you can mix them up for literary purposes.
Lazarus,
Thanks a lot. This really helps. One last question. Is there any example, in modern Spanish, where -se should be used or is it perfectly acceptable to always use -ra?
Thanks again.
If I recall correctly (and I can't find a reference on the Internet), some parts of Spain use "se" endings for the imperfect subjunctive. The ONLY thing I've ever seen about it was a footnote in my book during the lesson that said "In some places, the imprefect subjunctive is conjugated with -se, etc. endings, but you will not be taught this"
Ahh, actually, found me a link: http://spanish.about.com/od/verbmoods/a/2impsubjunctive.htm
