If you’d like to learn about the Present Subjunctive Tense with Regular verbs, you’ve come to the right place! Some people take a strong dislike to the Subjunctive, because it can be quite confusing. For a start… it’s not a tense. It’s often considered a ‘mood’ that has different tenses within it. What on earth???
Well, just to clarify… you use a tense to talk about when an action takes place and you use a mood to show how you feel about the action that is taking place.
As it happens, I love the subjunctive because it’s a challenge! Life and languages would be boring if everything was easy and no rules were broken. Well, the subjunctive certainly keeps life and languages interesting!
However, if you are not familiar with when to use the subjunctive I suggest you take a look at my explanation on Indicative VS Subjunctive before you study how to form it. This is because knowing when to use the subjunctive is just as important as knowing how to form the subjunctive. Plus, if you don’t have some knowledge of when and why to use it, you can start doubting yourself when using the grammar you have already learnt.
Just FYI, everything you have learnt before the Subjunctive is called the Indicative!
So, let’s assume you now have a reasonable idea of when to use the Subjunctive. So what now?
Now, let’s take a look at the formation of the Present Subjunctive:
First, you would have some kind of trigger (i.e. I doubt that/ I demand that/It’s good that…) and then you would follow the trigger with this new conjugation:
- Take the ‘yo’ form of the present tense that you are already used to (the indicative) i.e. Como / Hablo / Tengo
- Remove the ‘o’ leaving, for example: Com_ /Habl_ /Teng_ . This will be the stem for 6 formations (yo/tu/él etc.).
- Add the new subjunctive ending.
Here are the endings:
| -AR | -ER | -IR | |
| (yo) | -e | -a | -a |
| (tú) | -es | -as | -as |
| (él/ella/usted) | -e | -a | -a |
| (nosotros/as) | -emos | -amos | -amos |
| (vosotros/as) | -éis | -áis | -áis |
| (ellos/as/ustedes) | -en | -án | -an |
For example: Hablar
- (yo) hable
- (tú) hables
- (él/ella) hable
- (nosotros/as) hablemos
- (vosotros/as) habléis
- (ellos/ellas) hablen
Here are some examples in full senteces:
- … que (yo) hable portugués. (… that you speak Portuguese.)
- … que (tú) comas carne. (… that I eat meat.)
- … que (nosotros) tengamos una casa en el campo. (… that we have a house in the countryside.)
Did you notice… the endings look almost the same as the ones you already know (for the indicative). We kind of swap -AR endings for -ER ending.
Now, it’s not 100% like that but if you keep that in mind you’ll be pretty much there in terms of knowing how to form the Present Subjunctive.
Just keep in mind that:
- ‘Yo’ will fall in line with the rest of the verb formation instead of adding ‘o’ (yo coma).
- ER/IR verbs have exactly the same endings in the Subjunctive, rather than being very similar (as per the indicative).
- Many verbs that are irregular in the Indicative are not ‘considered’ irregular in the subjunctive because they follow the rule. Which, if you remember, is 1-Take the ‘yo’ form of the indicative; 2– Remove the ‘o’ and 3– Add on the new ending for the subjunctive).
Fancy a practice?
Now you’ve got the basics, have a go at the practice activity below, to help solidify the formation of the PRESENT Subjunctive, with regular verbs:
What now then?… Don’t be an eager beaver!
Take some time to work on the Present Subjunctive Tense with regular verbs first. This is absolutely essential to help your understanding when it comes to learning and using the more complex subjunctive. Then, you can consider studying the Subjunctive with irregular verbs.
Now remember that when I say ‘irregular verbs’ I mean verbs that don’t follow this rule (for the Present Subjunctive Mood), not necessarily verbs that are irregular in the Present Indicative Mood. So, whilst you’ll be expecting verbs like TENER and VENIR to be irregular in the Present Subjunctive (purely because they are often irregular in the indicative tenses), this is not the case. They are not on the irregular list because they do as they should in the Present Subjunctive.
Once you’ve studied and practised these you’ll be a pro! Then, in time, you can tackle the Imperfect Subjunctive. What? You say! Another type of Subjunctive? Yes… but… don’t rush to get to this stage. It’s about quality learning, not quantity.
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