Subjunctive
Not a tense and not optional. What it actually signals, and the triggers worth memorising.
A2
- The Spanish imperative: commands, and how to soften them
Affirmative and negative commands are built from different stems, tú has eight irregulars, and in Peru a bare command is usually the wrong register anyway.
B2
- The past subjunctive, and the four places you actually need it
Two interchangeable endings, one formation rule that never fails, and the handful of sentence shapes that make it compulsory rather than optional.
- Spanish unreal conditionals: if I had, I would have
Three kinds of if-sentence, one of which needs the subjunctive and two of which do not. The patterns, and the mistake even native speakers make.
- The connectors that force the subjunctive (and the ones that do not)
Some connectors always take the subjunctive, some never do, and a third group changes meaning depending on which you use. The three lists, with the logic.
- The three Spanish conditionals, side by side
Si tengo, si tuviera, si hubiera tenido — three if-sentences making three different claims, and the one rule that stops the commonest error.
- Haya llegado: the Spanish perfect subjunctive
Haya plus a participle. It is the present perfect wearing subjunctive clothes, and it has exactly two jobs worth learning.
C1
- Hubiera and hubiese: the pluperfect subjunctive
Hubiera hecho covers the past that never happened. In Peru it also quietly replaces habría, and stands alone to mean you should have.
- The four Spanish subjunctives as one system
Present, perfect, imperfect, pluperfect. Two questions pick the right one every time, and they are not four separate tenses to memorise.