3.6.2 Regular conjugations of the present subjunctive

The great news about the subjunctive is that there are only 6 true irregular verbs.  We’ll cover those after we review the regular forms.  All other verbs are regular and all the regular verbs use the Present indicative yo form as their starting point.  Let’s take 3 verbs that are usually regular to show the pattern:

As you probably already know, or as you may have been able to understand from the chart to get the present subjunctive form of the verb you:

1. Take the yo form
2. Drop the O
3. Add the “opposite” vowel.  This means add an “e” to -ar verbs and “a” to -er/-ir verbs.

This works in verbs that have a stem-changing yo form as well.  Let’s see a few examples:

Stem changers lose the stem change in nosotros and vosotros forms.  This happens to all stem changing verbs in the present subjunctive.  It has to do with where the strong syllable falls in the word, the “ue” and “ie” forms can only happen if they are in the strong syllable.

Even a verb like tener with the form “tengo” or “salgo” follows the same pattern regular pattern based on the yo form of the verb: