The Spanish Subjunctive: Tips and Tricks

Spanish Grammar

We hope that the following tricks, born from pure experience and an unorthodox vision of grammar, can help you in your ELE (Español como Lengua Extranjera / Spanish as a Foreign Language) classes.

The fascinating world of the subjunctive

1. Remember that when a student decides to learn Spanish, the biggest, scariest “Grammar Monster” (besides Ser / Estar, Por / Para) is the subjunctive. Our aim is to eliminate this fear and to help students enter the fascinating world of the subjunctive.
2. The morphology of the present subjunctive shouldn’t cause too many problems for students that already know how to form the imperative. All they need to do is to change the verb endings and voila! For example…

3. We can use the imperative tense to give an order, instructions, advice etc. Usually the speaker is expressing a desire upon the listener to complete a certain action. And the imperative is always associated with the future; there is no such thing as the past imperative (obviously!) Often speakers employ the imperative tense when they see something that
   a) does not seem right and / or
   b) that they want to change.
   The fact that the present subjunctive is formed in the same way as the imperative tense hints at the fact that these two tenses have something in common.
4. It may be said that, in Spanish, the imperative is like a teenager: shy and unable to be alone; it always needs to be in a group. When forming the present subjunctive, there is a simple pattern which you can follow…

Verb 1 + Que + Verb 2

These are the same ideas expressed by the imperative.
This is just an introduction. In future articles, we will continue exploring other ways to solve the problems faced by students when it comes to Spanish grammar. Moreover, we will start to discuss some of the common feelings experienced by students such as insecurity and fear when it comes to falling behind at school / college / university. These negative sensations tend to be harmful to the learning process and damage one’s motivational skills. You must guard your motivation and can-do-it attitude as if it's a precious jewel! Believe in yourself and you shall achieve your goals.