image description:
panik kalm panik meme template.
panik: accidentally saying “hubiera” instead of “habriá”
kalm: natives say it the same way
panik: they’re also wrong
help folks! Spanish subjunctives are killing me :'(
Look at it from the bright side, if everyone uses it incorrectly it will eventually become the correct version. That’s how we got so many romance languages in the first place.
through the power of ✨ linguistic descriptivism 💫
plus I get to sound native :)
“This is literally killing me” - OP
Formally, “hubiera”/“hubiese” is only used within subclauses, i.e «si lo hubiera visto, habría hecho algo» etc. They never stand as the only verb and don’t appear in simple clauses. You can’t say “hubiera hecho algo”, it’s “habría hecho algo”. Here, the subjunctive (hubiera) is doing the same job as “were” in english, and the conditional (habría) is equivalent to “would”: «if I were luckier, it would have worked out». This is the case with subjunctives in general, they mostly only ever appear in subclauses other than very specific exceptions (such as negative imperative or vestigial expressions like «Dios quiera que…»). The trick is learning which subclauses use indicative and which use subjunctive :)
Informally, though, natives will tell you that it doesn’t matter because it truly doesn’t. The formula “if (subjunctive) then (subjunctive)” is understood by everybody with the same meaning as “if (subjunctive) then (conditional)”, and you can even use it in formal settings such as when talking to your boss, at least in Spain.
Source: Am native, from Spain. Good luck with the language learning!
It’s also made harder for English speakers because the subjunctive form in English is rarely used in a way that’s both correct and distinguishable from a simple past tense verb.
only subjunctive I use in english is if I were …
thank you karu for the detailed comment!
Can I help? I don’t think so. Can I make it worse? Maybe, because there’s also “hubiese”.
ah yes, the legal Spanish. do people use it?
It seems to be less common in America. And a bit random in Spain using hubiera and hubiese more interchangeably.
I don’t think it’s necessarily legal but it does sound more literary.
yes, my only known interaction with this formation is in formal settings(and in some YouTube videos from Spain)
Yes, we use it. However, it’s more common to say “hubiera”. There’s no specific rule to differenciate between both, but at least in the center and north of spain we mostly use “hubiera” for first person and “hubiese” for third person.
“Ojalá hubiera podido ir, pero tenía deberes” (yo)
“Ojalá David hubiese venido, se lo habría pasado bien” (él)
As I said, both options would be correct in both cases, and probably in other places they use the words differently.
thank you! now I get why do people suddenly switch to using it in Spain. I had always thought it was for fun.
Fun fact: the Basques use “habría” instead of “hubiera”.
just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder.
*there also wrong
their*
thar*
the’r*
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chilango?
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You are doing great 😃
thank you. I hope your username doesn’t affect the veracity of this encouragement
Wegen dir, oder deinetwegen?
is this German equivalent of a similar thing?
