Tenses vs moods, and when to use the subjunctive in Spanish 

Confused by the subjunctive mood?

Everybody is! 💪

The good news is that you don't really need to understand the subjunctive to use it correctly. There are very specific and concrete things that call for the subjunctive to be used, and they boil down to a 3-step formula:

So long as that makes sense, you'll be able to use and recognize the subjunctive pretty reliably. (If it doesn't, you're in the right place!) From there, as you spend more time consuming Spanish media, you'll gradually develop a feel for what kind of nuance the subjunctive adds to a sentence.

For now, though, here's a crash course into the Spanish subjunctive mood:

[Table] The Spanish subjunctive mood in 30 seconds:

What is the subjunctive in Spanish?

Before we get into the how-to, let's take a moment to clarify what the subjunctive is.

This is clear as mud and raises two important questions:

So, let's get into it:

Grammatical tense vs grammatical mood

Grammatical tense and grammatical mood are distinct grammatical concepts that work together to give us information about a verb, and every verb always has both. When you say yo hablo Español (I speak Spanish), for example, that "hablo" is actually in the present tense and the indicative mood.

If we try to tease the two concepts apart, we might say that:

Another wrench we need to dodge has to do with an unfortunate accident of etymology:

Indicative mood vs imperative mood vs subjunctive mood

Spanish verbs can come in one of three grammatical moods—or grammatical modes. These are:

Now let's look at each of those moods in action:

How the subjunctive mood is used in English

If the subjunctive has you bristling in your bufanda, you should know that we actually use it in English, too. The English subjunctive is much more limited than the Spanish subjunctive, and the subjunctive also sounds quite formal in English, but it's there.

Here's a few English examples of the subjunctive for you:

Conjugation Chart How to form the present subjunctive in Spanish

Thankfully, forming the present subjunctive is pretty straightforward: if you know your present (indicative) tense constructions, you'll be able to remember the subjunctive ones easily.

And now here's a table showing the present tense conjugations of an -ar verb, an -er verb, an -ir verb, and an irregular verb:

† The pattern changes because _sentir is a stem-changing verb, but that topic is beyond the scope of this article._

Basic Spanish Subjunctive Formula

Now that we know how to form the subjunctive, let's talk about when to use it. One of the most straightforward ways to spot (or construct) a subjunctive sentence in Spanish is to use a simple formula.

Many Spanish subjunctive sentences follow this structure:

For example: Yo quiero que tú vengas. (I want you to come.)

Note that Spanish often drops subject pronouns (yo + tú here), so you'll often actually see something like quiero que vengas. What's important isn't the presence of the subject pronouns, but the fact that different people are doing each of the sentence's verbs.

WEIRDO: The 6 basic subjunctive triggers

As mentioned above, while the subjunctive is a nebulous concept that may be difficult to wrap your mind around, its usage is actually very straightforward: WEIRDO verb + que + any other verb being done by someone else.

WEIRDO is an acronym which refers to six different categories of verb:

If you spot one of these words or phrases in the beginning of a Spanish sentence, your subjunctive radar should go off. It's not guaranteed—you still need the word "que" and for it to be followed up with someone else doing a different verb—but it's a major first condition that's been met.

Now let's look at each of the WEIRDO subjunctive triggers in a bit more detail. I'll bold the verbs that are in the subjunctive so they're easier to pick out.

Wish" triggers for the subjunctive

These are verbs that express a wish, desire, hope, or need for something to happen. If someone wants something to occur (or not occur), you'll use subjunctive for that second action.

Common wish triggers include:

And here's a few bonus triggers:

"Emotion" triggers for the subjunctive

When the sentence is expressing emotion about something, you’ll often use the subjunctive. It could be happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger, or any other feeling in regards to something else happening.

Common emotion triggers include:

And a few bonus triggers:

"Impersonal expression" triggers for the subjunctive

Impersonal expressions are phrases like "It is (adjective) that...", and they're called impersonal because the subject has been changed to "it". In other words, instead of saying "I think it's (adjective) that...", you're removing the "person" from the statement entirely.

These expressions come in the format "Es (adjective) que" and state an opinion, value judgment, or broad observation about what should or might be.

Common impersonal expression triggers include:

And a few bonus triggers for you:

Note: If you're reading closely, you might notice that the "es una lástima que..." example from the previous session looks an awful lot like an impersonal expression... and you'd be right! There's some overlap. WEIRDO is just a convenient way to remember what sort of things will probably cause the subjunctive to be used in Spanish. It's not super important whether a phrase belongs to one category or another.

"Recommendation/request" triggers for the subjunctive

This category covers telling, asking, or advising someone to do something. Generally speaking, this category encapsulates any verb that involves you exerting influence over someone else’s actions—whether gently (suggesting) or forcefully (demanding).

Common recommendation/request triggers include:

And a few more for you:

"Doubt/denial" triggers for the subjunctive

If the main verb expresses doubt, uncertainty, or the assertion that you don't think/believe something, you'll use the subjunctive to bring up the thing you're doubting.

Common doubt/denial triggers include:

And a few more for the list:

The "ojalá" subjunctive trigger

Ojalá is a special and very common Spanish word that means "hopefully" or "I hope". It comes from an Arabic phrase meaning "God willing," and it always triggers the subjunctive. Breaking the rule we previously laid out, you can also use ojalá without following up with "que".

Furthermore, I have it on good authority that if you take 4 minutes and 7 seconds to listen to the following song, you'll never forget how to use ojalá:

The song expresses hope for a better life for people from poor and rural communities across Latin America, starting with the hope that it will rain coffee. It's an upbeat song and says "ojalá que..." about a million times, so if you listen to it periodically, you'll drill this structure hopefully into your memory.

More commonly, you'll hear things like:

And you'll often even hear "ojalá que" omitted entirely from both of these expressions!

Common Phrases That Use the Subjunctive

Apart from the WEIRDO triggers, Spanish also has many set phrases and conjunctions that are commonly used with the subjunctive. If you look throuhg the example sentences below, you'll notice that they have something in common: they tend to introduce a condition or hypothetical situation in which one thing happening is contingent on another thing happening.

This should make sense: the other thing hasn't happened, and there's a chance it won't happen—when we make these sort of sentences, we aren't describing reality as it objectively is. As such, we use the subjunctive.

Again, while these are good things to know, don't stress!

As you consume more Spanish media and hear these phrases being used in the wild, you'll eventually develop an intuitive feel for how they work—it'll eventually feel strange to use these phrases with the indicative because you always hear them in the subjunctive.

† This is actually the imperfect subjunctive form of dar (to give). Just a heads up that the subjunctive gets used with more tenses than just the present tense!

Comparison: Structures that can take the indicative mood or the subjunctive mood

There are several times when it can be correct to use either the indicative or subjunctive mood in Spanish, but your nuance will change slightly depending on which one you choose

We'll get into some specific examples below, but generally speaking:

So the indicative is “real”, and the subjunctive exists in contrast to reality.

To set the stage, here's a classic example for you to chew on:

Both of these sentences essentially mean "Julia's friends like it when she laughs," but they're not quite the same.

How do they differ?

Take a moment to think about what you've learned about the subjunctive so far, and when you're ready, click the big "+" button below to check your answer.

1. Cuando + indicative or subjunctive

I've put a lot of thought into this article, but cuando is the first word that's going to make you think I'm a liar. You'll often see it used with both the subjunctive and with the indicative.

As with the example with Julia above, there's a specific nuance behind the choice to use either grammatical mood.

You'll notice similar logic with other time phrases such as hasta que (until), después de que (after), tan pronto como (as soon as), and so forth.

2. Aunque (Although/Even if)

The word aunque has a different nuance depending on whether it's used with the indicative or subjunctive—but, thankfully, the difference is pretty concrete.

With the indicative structure, there's no doubt: it's certain that the thing is expensive. With the subjunctive structure, things aren't as fixed: the possibility exists that the thing may be expensive, but you aren't certain yet.

3. Existential statements and questions

There are a handful of other phrases that can be used with either the subjunctive or indicative, but so long as you understand how the logic works, you'll gradually piece them together.

For now, I want to close with an example that's slightly different.

Consider these two sentences:

If you've been following along so far, this should hopefully make sense!

A Frustration-free approach to learning the subjunctive

It isn't just you: this is a lot. It's complex stuff, and it's a lot to wrap your head around if you aren't a grammar nerd. (Hell, even if you are a grammar nerd, it's kind of confusing.)

The good news is that this isn't math. You don't need to understand all these fancy linguistic words. You just need to notice the patterns.

Here's what you're going to do:

Above all else, spend a lot of time interacting with Spanish

The subjunctive is confusing primarily because you haven't encountered much of it yet. You're experiencing some mental panic because Spanish verb conjugations are already tricky enough to remember... and now you need to remember another set of verb conjugations that, really, it seems like you've gone your entire life just fine in English without ever needing.

That's natural.

... but if you follow a few podcasts, read a few books, watch a few telenovelas—we've actually got a guide to learning Spanish by watching TV—and generally interact with Spanish, something important will change.

You'll have hundreds of little sentences floating around in your head where the subjunctive is being used.

You'll notice patterns.

Things will click.

Use a tool like Migaku to get explanations of why the subjunctive is used in a particular sentence

So, say you're watching something on YouTube, as you do, and you suddenly get smacked with the word sea. You recognize that this is the present subjunctive form of "es" (or maybe you don't, no worries!)—but you don't quite get why it's being used here.

Just click on it.

Migaku will analyze the sentence it appears in to give you an in-context explanation of what it means.

Make flashcards out of the useful subjunctive expressions you encounter

You stumbled into an example of the subjunctive in the wild... but that's just the beginning!

This particular sentence contains the word pedacito (a small amount of something), and I hadn't known that word, so I decided to make a flashcard out of it.

By pressing that orange button in the top-right corner of the pop-up dictionary, which you can see above, Migaku automatically made me a flashcard that looks like this:

More specifically, Migaku automatically fetched:

That took all of two seconds, which is awesome... but what makes Migaku stand out for language learners is that all of our dictionary lookup features can be used with your flashcards.

So, on the offchance that I'm reviewing this flashcard a few months from now (read this if you aren't sure how spaced repetition works) and am not sure why sea was being used here, I can just click it. Migaku will explain:

Repeat!

As you spend more time consuming Spanish content, and you encounter more instances of the subjunctive being used, you'll gradually and naturally develop an intuitive feel for how the subjunctive works and what nuance it lends to a sentence.

Try Migaku for free

[Recap] Learning Spanish and Learning the Subjunctive

Learning Spanish isn't easy, but it is pretty simple:

What all successful Spanish learners have in common is that they've spent a lot of time consuming Spanish, in one way or another.

Anyway, that's my soapbox. Here's a recap of the article's keypoints:

And with that: ojalá que tengas suerte, amigo/a!