Groups - How I think I speak and what I think.

Hola Don.

I think it's necessary to know the how's and why's when one is starting the learning process.  To make sense of it all.

But like you say, they're just words. 

The fact is that after you've said something enough times, and heard it said a certain way enough times, it just sounds and feels right.

When you say in english...man, if I had enough money, I'd buy it...you aren't thinking about the fact that you're using "had" differently than if you said ....yesterday I still had food in the fridge, or...last week I had to pick her up...you just say it.

It becomes the same way in Spanish.  Pretty soon you aren't thinking about saying "tuviera", you just say it and know somewhere in your mind that it gives a different meaning--the meaning that you intend.

Si tuviera más dinero, lo compraría.

So yeah, in the beginning, you actually "choose" to use a tense, because you are still translating in your head before speaking, but later the translating stops, and you just speak.

I will say however, that when I come across a verb that I don't use a lot, and it isn't automatic, sometimes I'll still have to do the long route in my head and see that subjunctive form or whatever it needs to be before I spit it out.  So in that sense, having the base and the knowledge from the beginning is essential.

thanks for the feedback hypersport

i wrote this because i have wasted a lot of time flailing around trying to get a handle on the subjunctive. I dont have the training, or the passion for jargon laden explanations and the more simplistic explanations such as "its used to inject emotion" pose more questions than they answer.

when i was learning english and was told that one should say "that you be on time" rather than "that you are on time"  the only explanation on offer, even from profesional teachers was "because you do" its bad english"  "you just do" and the ever popular "just be there and stop being a smartarse ok? "etc etc. consequently i never understood the reasons and yet i still managed to learn to speak corrrectly. (and i be'd there on time) as you say, eventually you stop asking questions and just speak.

my understaning as explained above, ie that the surrounding framework demands a particular conjugation makes a lot more sense to me than "you use the subjunctive endings to inject emotion." granted in the meta analysis you may well be expressing opinion or implying uncertainty but not just by conjugating the verb a certain way. the phrase "it seems to me that" is the bit that conveys uncertainty not the "you are/you be" verb conjugation, it seems to me that that bit is just a convention it actually adds no information to the sentence. e.g.

take the sentence. compro lo       

can one say vaya a comprar algo  or

thanks for the feedback hypersport

i wrote this because i have wasted a lot of time flailing around trying to get a handle on the subjunctive. I dont have the training, or the passion for jargon laden explanations and the more simplistic explanations such as "its used to inject emotion" pose more questions than they answer.

when i was learning english and was told that one should say "that you be on time" rather than "that you are on time"  the only explanation on offer, even from profesional teachers was "because you do" its bad english"  "you just do" and the ever popular "just be there and stop being a smartarse ok? "etc etc. consequently i never understood the reasons and yet i still managed to learn to speak corrrectly. (and i be'd there on time) as you say, eventually you stop asking questions and just speak.

my understaning as explained above, ie that the surrounding framework demands a particular conjugation makes a lot more sense to me than "you use the subjunctive endings to inject emotion." granted in the meta analysis you may well be expressing opinion or implying uncertainty but not just by conjugating the verb a certain way. the phrase "it seems to me that" is the bit that conveys uncertainty not the "you are/you be" verb conjugation, it seems to me that that bit is just a convention it actually adds no information to the sentence. e.g.

take the sentence. lo compro    i buy it
can one say   lo compre
to imply that you might buy it but you arent sure or does it always require some supporting phrase such as

no estoy seguro que yo lo compre.

as i understand things, the verb alone is not enough to convey possibility doubt uncertainty. it is simply one part of a structure that signals these things and on its own is as confusing as one bracket (  or set of inverted commas " we need a subjunctive chunk to partner the conjugated verb. 

I may well be completely wrong. please let me know if i am.

accidently posted this before id finished writing so i have to go, my 15 mins are up :-)

damn, just too slow. sorry about the double post folks

as you were, bad example. obviously my not being sure and my not buying involve the same person,i.e. me, and so no need for the subjunctive verb. sorry, clock was ticking and i got flustered

ill try again... come queso s/he eats cheese

if you were unsure of this fact, can you say  coma queso to imply that you think s/he probably does eat cheese but you're not 100% or does it require a phrase like
es posible que ella coma queso to convey your uncertainty?

as far as i can see the conjugated verb on its own can only be an odd but polite command.. eat cheese!
It may seem like im splitting hairs but this has confused me no end. the uncertainty-emotion aspect of the sentence is not "in" the subjunctified verb but in the set up phrase.

I could never understand how you could get away with turning staements into questions simply by changing the inflection. surely, if one doesnt know the answer one should use the subjunctive i.e. ¿coma queso? and not ¿come queso?
i reasoned that jokes and fairy stories should be full of subjunctive conjugations because they were imaginary etc. and this misunderstanding came from being told that  subjunctive conjugations were for discussing unreal things.  theyre not. primarily it seems to me that theyre command forms and all the doubt possibilty wonder etc etc is located in the plain language satements like...i wonder if?

i think  ;-)

Donperigo, no te preocupes, these are good thoughts and questions.

Yeah, you have to add something to the statement or sentence to give it that "maybe" or "might" before you conjugate the verb to the subjunctive.

¿Vas a ir?  Are you going?
Sí voy.  I'm going.

¿Vas a ir? Are you going?
Quizas vaya.  I might go.

Lo compro.  I buy it.
Lo voy a comprar.  I'm gonna buy it.

Quizas lo compra.  Maybe I'll buy it.

Come queso.  She eats cheese.
¿Come queso?  Does she eat cheese?

Quizas coma queso.  Maybe she eats cheese.

Like you said, if you conjugate the verb by itself you're moving to the imperative form.

Coma.  Eat. (ud.)

Cómala.  Eat it.  (ud. form with a cookie for example)

Cómasela.  Eat it up (same ud. form but using comerse...more in the sense of pound that thing, or gobble it up)

Cómetela.  Same thing here, comerse again but with tú

cheers hypersport

"no te preocupes" dont sweat it

now, is this a nice straight forward negative instruction/imperative/command or is this the subjunctified second clause of a longer sentence which begins i hope that..(but i am unsure..) and which therefore requires the subjunctive. this obviously being an unspoken clause that we can all assume.

or would that have to be que te no preocupes?

meh, tomate jitomate :-) you can go mad worrying about this stuff.

thanks for your help coming back to this again has consolodated a few things i have been mulling over.

Yep, that's just the negative command.

I have a couple of guys working on my deck.  I wanted to as them “if I put the table on the deck would it be in the way”.  “to be in the way” is "estar en medio".
Should I have said
“¿si pusiera la mesa en el patio estaría en medio?”
or
“¿si pongo la mesa en el patio estará en medio?”

Steve, I like them both.

Another option...

¿les molestaría si pongo la mesa en el patio?

Donperigo:

I just noticed that up above I gave you the example quizas lo compra, should have been quizas lo compre.

hypersport

Thank you

olinka28

You are correct.

pienso que está mejorando

creo que está mejorando. 

no pienso que esté mejorando

no creo que esté mejorando

See the link

Hello, folks, sorry I'm coming so late to this discussion. 

hypersport, Leo and I both prefer "si pusiera... estaría..."  It's the classic if(imp.subj), then (conditional) formula. 

donperigo, you said:

All of the rules about when to use the subjunctive ie conjecture doubt opinion, counterfactuals etc have their place but, for me, they put the cart before the horse. they are illustrations-observations examples and not rules.

that is a good description of the tension between descriptive adecuacy and explanatory adecuacy.  Unfortunately, most textbook chapters about the subjunctive are written descriptively, which is why you get silly descriptive rules about emotion or uncertainty. 

So how do you learn it?  As you say above, at first you just memorize the phrases and contexts that trigger the subjunctive (i.e., es ridículo que..., no creemos que..., etc.). 

As you memorize these phrases, you'll start to notice patterns; the phrases themselves can be corralled into four groups: 

Influence & reported commands (i.e., ella quiere que lo haga, me dijo que yo lo hiciera, etc.)

Non-certainty (no estoy seguro que..., dudo que.., no es cierto que...)

Impersonal judgements (es bueno que..., es ridículo que.., está bien que...)  notice that all these phrases have zero grammatical subject.

Emotional Expression (me alegro que, está muy triste que...)

Once you get your head around those thematic corralls, you won't be memorizing phrases anymore; you'll be inventing new ones and knowing instinctively if they belong in those corralls.

And, maybe after years of meditation and prayer, you'll notice the common thread in all of these subjunctive-triggering contexts:  in each of these, the speaker is trying to avoid stating that supposition that the statement might be actually true. 

I'll tell you this now, but you'll have to walk your own road to actually reach that point :)

JP   
I would like to add to what you said about Impersonal judgments.  All textbook say that impersonal statements require the subjunctive, but what they usually leave out is that impersonal statements or judgments which express certainty are followed by the indicative.  For example: es claro que, es cierto que, es verdad que, etc.

stevestrv, you are correct, my friend.  That's why I call them impersonal judgements, as in, "JP, you're being judgemental."

Statements like "es claro que..., es cierto que..., es verdad que..." are not passing judgement on anything; they are confirming fact. 

When I teach these corralls in the classroom, I have another corral:  the Anti-triggers, which do NOT trigger the subjunctive.  My students will tell you that the actual name of this corral "the Absolutely True Anti-Triggers."  They confirm that the suppositions are true, thus no subjunctive. 

Also anti-triggers:  "no dudo que...,"  "todos estamos seguros que..." "no es falso que..." etc.

JP

If you were my teacher when I first started studding Spanish, I could have avoided a lot of confusion.

Aw, thanks stevestrv, that's nice of you to say. 

But usually for my students those feelings of betrayal and punishment start flooding back when we start the subjunctive in adverbial clauses and relative pronouns... ha ha

JP

I'll tell you this now, but you'll have to walk your own road to actually reach that point :)

I suspect im there already because  this is an explanation of the subjunctive mood i can finally get behind

as i understand it....
use of the subjunctive, unlike the imperative, leaves you a little wiggle room so that if challenged you can bluster, oh well it was only a suggestion, what i meant was, sorry i didnt mean...its just a way of taking the sting out of the imperative in the same way that we use the conditional or opt for "me trae" in preference to "trigame" i.e. because you dont want people to spit in your food.

this ambiguity gives rise to explanations that it is used for expressing possability or doubt but in reality it's used for "implying" possabilty and doubt. the speaker knows damn well what they are saying but are simply couching it in a way that gives them an out if things get ugly.

consequently it is the "polite" way to phrase things

yes it is for expressing opinion but only because not using it make you seem opinionated and inflexable
when you are sure of your ground you say so i.e. creo que, es obvio que  are blunt staements of belief that dont trigger the subjunctive verb form because you are prepared to defend your viewpoint, you arent just floating an idea. on the other hand, "im happy that" is a position you can always revise.

now all we need to do is delete and burn all the other vague handwaving explanations out there confusing the bejeebers out of generations of students.

I agree with the above donperigo. After gaining an understanding of the spanish subjunctive, paying attention to when the subjunctive should be used in english kinda makes it seem as if the sentence doesn't really make sense... or that it is in a way too 'forward'.

I may not have said this correctly but I think it kinda agrees with your point.

me alegro que estemos de aquerdo

I started out with the belief that I need to subjunctify the verb because convention demands it?
however I can now see that a simple vowel change opens up several possible alternative interpretations

I could be being patronising ( I dont really agree with you)
or perhaps I am just being cautious (I may have misunderstood)
either way I may or may not be genuinely happy and the situation is open to change.

god i feel like a right two faced creep and i was just trying to agree with you. treacherous stuff this subjunctive.

donperigo, you get used to it after a while.