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Romance Subjunctive | ||
Tags: Morphology | Romance Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Uniceros Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4594 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: German, Latin, French | Message 1 of 12 17 June 2012 at 2:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I may be using the search function incorrectly, but I couldn't find a definite answer to this question. I've read some grammar summaries, so I have an idea of what the answer is, but I'd like to know, straight from people who speak multiple romance languages:
Which romance language has the most, and which has the least complicated or extensive subjunctive mood? I spoke Spanish before I learned English in school, but I've had to work hard in an effort to get it to an educated native level, and some book explanations of the subjunctive tenses just boggle my mind. It may have to do with how Mexican Spanish treats the subjunctive and what "feels" right clashing with textbook usage.. But my ultimate goal is to speak fluently both French and Italian, if not also Portuguese. I'm just wondering - will I have as hard a time with the subjunctive in those languages as well? I honestly don't know how non-natives learn to use so many tenses! I've mostly worked on German so I haven't had to go through romantic verbs from scratch. RG 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 12 17 June 2012 at 2:46am | IP Logged | ||
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French has two subjunctive tenses that you need to produce. They're pretty simple to
conjugate, and they're used in very predictable places. Did you just write "I'll faut que", "pour que", or another expression on the big list? Use the subjunctive. Otherwise, you generally don't. This is a slight simplification. But the French subjunctive is actually a pretty minor annoyance. Edited by emk on 17 June 2012 at 3:33am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 3 of 12 17 June 2012 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
If you've got your Spanish up to a high, native-like level, you'll find that when it comes time to learn another romance language, you'll also have to learn to resist the urge to use subjunctive when it's not needed. Spanish tends to use subjunctive more than other romance languages. R. == 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 4 of 12 17 June 2012 at 4:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I disagree, I think Italian uses the subjunctive slightly more than Spanish, for example in statements using pensare che, credere che, suporre che, immaginare che, aver l'impressione che whereas in Spanish the indicative would normally be used:
Penso che il problema sia più grande di quanto avessimo immaginato. Creo que el problema es más grande de lo que habíamos imaginado. Two subjunctive verbs in the Italian where the Spanish requires none. French probably uses the subjunctive the least, whilst Portuguese has the most tenses in regular use, as you will also have to master the future subjunctive and future perfect. Quando estiver no Brasil vou estudar o português. (estiver = fut sub) Cuando esté en el Brasil voy a estudiar el portugués 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 12 17 June 2012 at 4:10am | IP Logged | ||
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To tackle your larger question, the French verb system looks awful on paper, but it's
actually pretty straightforward in practice. Présent : The simple present tense. Futur proche : "I am going to run." Uses aller + infinitive, exactly like English. Futur simple : "I will run." Trivial conjugation. Futur antérieur : "I will have run." Based on passé composé. Passé composé : Discrete actions in the past. Uses avoir/être + participle. Imparfait : Ongoing or repeated actions in the past. Easy conjugation. Passé simple : Used in 80+% of books in place of the passé composé. Easy conjugation. Plus-que-parfait : "I had run." Based on passé composé. Conditionnel : "I would run." Trivial conjugation. Passé de conditionnel : Based on passé composé. Subjonctif : Mostly used with a fixed list of expressions. Passé de subjonctif : Based on passé composé. So that's 12 tenses. Six of them work almost exactly like English, and quite a few of of the others are variations on the passé composé. The only tricky parts are the difference between the passé composé and the imparfait, and figuring out when to use être as an auxiliary instead of avoir. There's a whole mess of literary tenses, but aside from the passé simple and the occasional passé antérieur, they're dead even in highly educated writing. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 6 of 12 17 June 2012 at 4:22am | IP Logged | ||
Surely you realize that those two sentences don't mean the same thing... R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 7 of 12 17 June 2012 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the meaning is the same, even if it isn't, it still illustrates my point that you usually use subjunctive after pensare/credere che in Italian, and indicative after pensar/creer que in Spanish when the sentence is a statement.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 8 of 12 17 June 2012 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Portuguese subjunctive is no biggie, it's less used than in Spanish, because Portuguese has personal infinitive which can replace it in 75% of cases.
-I don't recommend that you go there.- Não recomendo que você vá lá [=I don't recommend that you go there (with subjunctive) Não recomendo você ir lá [=I don't recommend you to go there] (with personal infinitive) sometimes other structures can be used instead, for example the gerund: -I don't want you to smoke in here.- Não quero que você fume aqui dentro. [=I don't want you to smoke in here; with subjunctive] Não quero você fumando aqui dentro. [=I don't want you smoking in here; with gerund] Não quero que você fuma aqui dentro. [=I don't want you smoke in here; with indicative, common in colloquial São Paulo speech] Future subjunctive is very easy. Morphologically. in regular verbs, future subjunctive and personal infinitive forms are identical (it is only in irregular verbs where they are different). Their being identical has lead to a SYNTACTICAL merger between two forms in Brazilian Portuguese, so people write SE VOCÊ SEGUI-LA (infinitive) instead of SE VOCÊ A SEGUIR (future subjunctive always asks for proclisis)...Both mean [If you [are to] follow her]... In basilectal Brazilian Portuguese (and sometimes in mesolectal e.g. lyrics of popular songs), people apply this merger even to irregular verbs: so they use infinitive instead of the future subjunctive of irregular verbs: QUANDO O SOL SE PÔR instead of QUANDO O SOL SE PUSER (When the Sun sets...) . SE INTERVIREM instead of SE INTERVIEREM (if they intervene). SE ELA VER VOCÊ instead of SE ELA VIR VOCÊ (If she sees/eyes you). So, for practical reasons, we can say, future subjunctive = personal infinitive (except for irregular verbs, which are not many, 30 at most, with some regularization in the most acroletical/dialectal Brazilian Portuguese where people don't even bother with these 30 verbs). As you can see, in Portuguese, there's a tendency to avoid the subjunctive whenever possible. So, in Portugal MAYBE/PERHAPS can be expressed with SE CALHAR + indicative instead of TALVEZ + subjunctive. In Brazil, especially in past context there is avoidance too: QUE BOM QUE VOCÊ CHEGOU! [common usage] instead of É/QUE BOM QUE VOCÊ TENHA CHEGADO!. [rare] In theory, Portuguese subjunctive is more difficult than the Spanish one, but in practical life it is much less used because both 1. standard forms and 2. non standard forms make it possible to reduce the overall frequency of subjunctive. Some examples of the subjunctive common in speech: in the future: Talvez ele vá pescar. = Maybe he will go fishing. Talvez chova amanhã. = Maybe it will rain tomorrow. Espero que você venha logo. = I hope you come right away. Se eu tiver uns dias de folga... = If I have a few days off... in the present: Talvez você esteja certo. = Maybe you're right. Tomara que eu possa viajar mais. = If only I could travel more. in the past: Se você tivesse chegado antes...= If you had come earlier... Espero que você tenha gostado. = I hope you liked it. Procurei alguém que falasse japonês. = I was looking for someone who spoke Japanese. conditional and polite expressions: Se eu tivesse mais dinheiro... = If I had more money... Eu gostaria que você me ajudasse = I would like you to help me... Edited by Medulin on 17 June 2012 at 4:58pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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