If you’ve been learning Spanish for a while, you’ve probably heard whispers about the mysterious and sometimes daunting subjunctive mood. It’s a verb form that often leaves learners scratching their heads, wondering when and how to use it.
But here’s the thing—the subjunctive is all about expressing emotions, doubts, desires, and possibilities, making it a powerful tool for rich, nuanced communication. Think of it as the mood that allows you to talk about what you wish, hope, or fear, rather than just what is. It’s what you need when you’re diving into conversations about the uncertain, the hypothetical, or the subjective.
Let’s dive into the world of subjunctive conjugation and demystify this essential aspect of Spanish, so you can start using it with confidence and clarity.
What Is The Subjunctive In Spanish?
The subjunctive is a verb mood that is used to express possible, desired, or hypothetical statements. In other words, statements that are not actually happening or are uncertain to happen.
Verb Moods vs Verb Tenses in Spanish
It’s important to note that moods and verb tenses are related but they are not the same. Moods of a verb do not refer to a moment in time but to a manner of expression. Although they can be conjugated in different tenses.
To simplify, think of moods as a manner of a verb to express facts, orders, or hypothetical situations. and tenses are simply the time when the action of the verb occurs
in Spanish, there are (luckily) just three moods:
- The indicative mood which indicates concrete actions, facts, or objective statements, it’s the most common of all three.
- The imperative mood which represents orders or instructions, and
- The subjunctive mood which indicates subjective statements, feelings, doubts, and insecurities.
Subjunctives and Indicatives may be conjugated in different tenses (past, present, or future). Each of these moods has a different function.
| Indicative Mood Example | Imperative Mood Example | Subjunctive Mood Example |
| Cada domingo el compra empanadas. | ¡Compre unas empanadas! | Ojalá compre algunas empanadas. |
When To Use Present Subjunctive In Spanish?
It’s easier to understand how the subjunctive work by looking at some examples. With subjunctives, you can express:
Wishes From One To Another Person
Mi Madre quiere que estudie medicina. – My mother wants me to study medicine.
In this sentence, the word estudie represents a wish, but not demand since it’s uncertain if the wants to follow what his mother wants.
Expressing Doubts in Spanish
No creo que llegue a tiempo. – I don’t think that it arrives on time.
In the same way, the verb llegue makes the sentence feel uncertain to actually know if the person will arrive on time.
Subjective Impressions
Es probable que llueva. – It is likely to rain
You can express some grade of probability to situations, but not facts, in this case, if it’s a fact that it will rain, you should say “va a llover.”
Hypothetical Situations
Descansaremos cuando las vacas vuelen. – We will rest when cows fly.
Also, you can use subjunctives to talk about situations that are not possible to happen like cows flying.
So, you see that the highlighted verbs are not in the present, past, or future tense, they are conjugated differently, that’s the subjunctive mood of the verb and you basically use it to show uncertainty.
How to Conjugate Subjunctives in Spanish
Here are some basic rules for the present subjunctive conjugation. Please remember that the subjunctive forms in different tenses will have different forms, so you will have to learn those as well. But in this section, we will present to you the basic aspects of conjugating subjunctives in the present tense.
All subjunctive verbs in the present tense will have two parts: the present subjunctive stem and the subjunctive ending.
QUICK TIP…
It’s important to know that the Subjunctive mood can also be conjugated in past or future tenses, they’re called Imperfect Subjunctive (for past) and Future Subjunctive (for future). But if you’re just starting with subjunctives, you can pause here and keep practicing the subjunctive conjugation in the present tense until you find yourself comfortable with it.
The Subjunctive Stem
Getting the Subjunctive Stem is really easy, you just have to take the letter “o” off from the first-person singular form of the present indicative, in other words, the “yo” form of the verb.
| Base Verb | Indicative “Yo” form (first person singular) | Present Subjunctive Stem |
| Comprar (to buy) | Compro | Compr- |
| Vender (to sell) | Vendo | Vend- |
| Comer (to eat) | Como | Com- |
| Tener (to have) | Tengo | Teng- |
| Ver (to see) | Veo | Ve- |
Note that there are also some irregular stem forms that can’t follow this rule, for example, these:
- haber (aux. to have): hay-
- ir (to go): vay-
- saber (to know): sep-
- dar (to give): d-
- estar (to be): est-
- ser (to be): se-
Creating the subjunctive stem is the first step for conjugating subjunctives. After this, you have to add the subjunctive ending at the end of the word.
You can have a quick overview of stem-chancging verbs in Spanish by clicking on that link!
The Subjunctive Ending
The present subjunctive endings are different for –ar verbs and –er/-ir verbs.
For AR Verbs
| Personal pronoun | Subjunctive ending | Verb Escuchar (To Listen) |
| Yo | –e | Escuch-e |
| Tú | -es | Escuch-es |
| Él / Ella / Usted | -e | Escuch-e |
| Nosotros | -emos | Escuch-emos |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | -en | Escuch-en |
For ER / IR Verbs
| Personal pronoun | Subjunctive ending | Verb Conocer (To get to know) Subjunctive Stem: Conozc |
| Yo | –a | Conozc-a |
| Tú | -as | Conozc-as |
| Él / Ella / Usted | -a | Conozc-a |
| Nosotros | -amos | Conozc-amos |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | -an | Conozc-an |
In order to master the subjunctive ending in the present form, you can pick some verbs and conjugate them in all personal pronouns. Little by little you will get used to them since most of the verbs follow these principles.
And that’s how you conjugate verbs in the subjunctive mood!
How to Identify When to use Subjunctives Quickly
Another great way to know when you should use subjunctives in a sentence is by thinking about the following rules:
1. First Rule: The Sentence has Two Subjects
The subjunctive mood usually appears in the subordinate clause (Second part of a sentence). The subject in this subordinate clause is in most cases different from the subject in the main clause.
- She wants me to eat the apple.
- Ella quiere que yo coma la manzana.
When you notice that there are two subjects in a sentence, a red flag goes off! You can check the next rule:
2. Second Rule: The sentence has Two Verbs
Because we talk about two clauses, there are usually two different verbs in these clauses. The first verb comes in the indicative mood in the main verb, and the second verb is in the subjunctive mood in the subordinate clause.
- She wants me to eat the apple.
- Ella quiere que yo coma la manzana.
As you can see in the example, there are two verbs in the sentence, the first one being “quiere” and the second one being the subjunctive verb of “comer”, note that the first verb is a verb that expresses a wish, that means that the second verb will surely be subjunctive
3. Third Rule: There Is a Relative Pronoun (que or quien)
The subordinate clause with the subjunctive form of the verb is usually introduced by a relative pronoun que (which, that) or quien (who, that).
- She wants me to eat the apple. (She wants that I eat the apple)
- Ella quiere que yo coma la manzana.
Identify when to use Subjuntives with WEIRDO
Don’t worry, no one is a weirdo here (maybe us for being so in love with Spanish learning), WEIRDO is an acronym that helps you remember what types of verbs that can introduce a clause with a subjunctive verb form. It stands for: Wishes, Emotions, Impersonal Expressions, Recommendations, Doubt/Denial, and Ojalá.
Common Subjunctive Phrases you can use in any Spanish Conversation
Here are more examples for you that you can practice with! You can change the context of the sentence as you like.
- No creo que pueda hacerlo.
- Espero que sepas como correr.
- Ojalá pudiera leer tu mente.
- Espero que la reunion resuelva el problema.
- Me gustaría que lean sus libros.
- Espero que estes bien.
- Es fundamental que te aprendas estos conceptos.
- Quiero que te vayas.
- No quiero que te sientas mal.
- Entiendo que te quieras ir.
- Posiblemente pidamos unos días en el trabajo para irnos de vacaciones.
- Que tengan un bonito día.
- Ojalá que te den a ti el puesto de trabajo.
- ¡Que cumplan muchos años más!
Have you ever wondered how many words, such as ojalá, from other languages were adopted and contributed to extend modern Spanish vocabulary? Here in this guide we’ll tell you about the beautiful history of the Spanish language and how it all came to be. Check it out!
Practice Makes Perfect
If you ask a native about subjunctives, they probably won’t know what it is, because natives actually never need to study this, they simply know, it’s so natural that they don’t even notice it, and you can surely get to that point, with a little bit of help and practice.
Mastering the subjunctive in Spanish is a great step in your ahead in your language-learning journey. After this, you will be even closer to achieving the levels of fluency that everyone is eager to get.
We hope that you enjoyed this complete article about the introduction of subjunctive mood conjugation in Spanish. Remember, this is a topic that requires some time of practice and study, so you can start over as much as you need to.
In case you feel like this topic is still, you can always trust SpanishVIP to guide you to achieve your Spanish-learning goals. You can sign up for a free Spanish lesson or a 7-day free trial of our group classes today and never stop learning!
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