4.11.1 The past subjunctive in counterfactual or hypothetical situations
Another use for the past subjunctive is in counterfactual or hypothetical situations. This means that what is being said is not true and is not real. The speaker is imagining something, projecting, or saying “IF this happened, then something else could happen” but that first didn’t happen. Hypothetical situations with the word if (si-no accent!) have a formula:
One clause: Si+ past subjunctive
Other clause: verb in the conditional
The other way to express a counterfactual is with the expression “como si” followed by the past subjunctive.
Before going into examples, let’s take a moment to review the conjugation of the conditional. The conditional has other uses that will be covered in chapter 6.
The conditional
The majority of verbs in the conditional are the infinitive + ía. There is no difference between AR and ER/IR verbs. Let’s take a look at our three regular verbs (hablar, comer, abrir)
| hablar | comer | abrir | |
| Yo | hablaría | comería | abriría |
| tú/vos | hablarías | comerías | abrirías |
| él/ella/elle/usted | hablaría | comería | abriría |
| nosotros | hablaríamos | comeríamos | abriríamos |
| vosotros | hablaríais | comeríais | abriríais |
| ellos/ustedes | hablarían | comerían | abrirían |
There are irregular verbs in the conditional. Here they are with their irregular root. The ending of -ía stays the same.
Forms that lose the “e” in the -er: caber (cabr-), haber (habr-), poder (podr-), saber (sabr-)
Forms that replace the “e” or “i” with “d”: poner (pondr-), salir (saldr-), tener (tendr-), valer (valdr-), venir (vendr-)
Other changes: decir (dir-), hacer (har-), querer (querr-)
Si-clause sentences
These sentences in English are one of the few times that we use the subjunctive. However, even this use of the subjunctive is dying out in English. Compare:
If I were you, I wouldn’t take that class.
If I was you, I wouldn’t take that class.
The sentences with “were” is the subjunctive and it may look more right in written speech. However, the second form is common in spoken English. Spanish however must use the past subjunctive in this kind of sentence.
Let’s see some examples of these kinds of sentences:
Si fuera tú (o vos), no tomaría esa clase.
Si fuera la verdad, yo sabría
Yo sabría si fuera la verdad
The order of the clauses isn’t important. Sometimes speakers will play with the order to make a sentence more interesting. Or if they are going to use this construction several times in a row, sometimes the “si” is first and sometimes not, again to make the sentences more interesting.
