The Present Subjunctive

The Subjunctive is not a tense but a mood. What does that mean? It is called a mood because it doesn't deal with factual reality but with opinions, feelings, suppositions, dreams and speculation. We use the Subjunctive to mentally and emotionally organize our world in terms of others.

We use the Indicative tense (Present, Preterite, Imperfect...) to express what occurs in the present or past reality.

Some people say there is no Subjunctive in English but this isn't true. It is less apparent and less conscious than in Spanish. The Subjunctive form in English is identical to the infinitive, we can only see the Subjunctive in irregular verbs or in the third-person singular form (He, She, It.)

For instance, if your mother has a cold, the doctor might recommend that she drink 4 glasses of water a day. Normally, the conjugation is "She drinks"; but the Subjunctive form drops the "s".

Another example is that the State requires that you be 21 years old to purchase alcohol. Or even, "If I were King, I would eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream daily." These are all examples of the Subjunctive Mood in English.

In Spanish there are defined conjugations for the Subjunctive that are used frequently in everyday conversations. In Spanish, the Subjunctive represents the things we imagine others doing (or not doing) or how we feel about events that have happened to others. It encompasses things that are rhetorical in our minds or emotional in our hearts.