Subjunctive Spanish

Last week Rodney and I finished Book 3 in our Spanish class. We are now entering the book that has given the most people trouble. In the past we were learning present tense, past tense, future tense, and imperative tense. It took 3 books to teach us all of these tenses. Book 4 is not a tense...it is subjunctive mode...a totally different way of speaking. In book 4, we will learn subjunctive in all of the tenses. It is said that if you are able to speak in subjunctive mode correctly, you are considered to be fluent in Spanish.

What exactly is subjunctive Spanish?

If you want to tell your child to clean their room, there area a couple of different ways to say it in English. You could say "Clean your room" *imperative or command tense*
In Spanish that would be "Limpies tu cuarto."

If you want to say it less forcefully and like a request, in English you would say "I want you to clean your room." *simple indicative*
In Spanish this can be translated as "Yo quiero que tu limpias tu cuarto."
This statement can be said this way, but the fluent speaker would know that subjunctive is more correct.

The correct translation is "Yo quiero que tu limpies tu cuarto." *subjunctive*
Saying the statement this way will tell a Latino that you have studied their language and that speaking correctly is important to you. This in turn shows the Latino that he or she is important to you.

Did you see the difference? One letter... a changes to e. A small difference such as this makes a big difference in how we will be viewed by the Latin people.

Please be in prayer for us in this very important stage in our language learning.