Spanish Subjunctive Conjugations - Spanish Obsessed (2024)

Chapters in this guide:

1. What is the subjunctive? A brief introduction
2. Spanish subjunctive conjugations: Verb forms and quiz (this chapter)
3. Spanish subjunctive uses and meanings
4. Deep dive 1: Noun clauses
5. Deep dive 2: Adjective clauses
6. Deep dive 3: Additional uses
7. 33 Spanish subjunctive phrases to memorise now

Conjugations for the present simple subjunctive

Conjugations for theimperfectsubjunctive

We’ll be doing the above forregularandirregular verbs. However, this isnotan exhaustive list (this guide is already long enough!).

If you are already comfortable with these conjugations, feel free to skip to the next chapter.

Forming the present subjunctive

The easiest way to remember this is to think aboutswitching the ending, and think of theyoform:

-AR verbs switch their endings to -ER verbs
-ER and -IR verbs switch to -AR endings

All the conjugations are based on theyoform of the indicative tense (ie, the normal one that you use!)

For -ar verbs, those endings are:-e, -es, -e, -emos, -éis, -en.

Let’s taketrabajaras an example:

yo trabaje (trabaj comes from the yo form: yo trabajo)

tú trabajes

él, ella, usted trabaje

See Also

The Spanish subjunctive: A comprehensive cheat sheetDemystifying the Subjunctive in Spanish: a Beginner's Guide - Spanish OnlineSubjunctive Irregular | Spanish Verb Conjugation33 incredibly useful expressions to help you master the Spanish subjunctive

nosotros trabajemos

ustedes, ellos trabajen

For -er verbs, those endings are:-a, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an.

Let’s try that withcomer:

yo coma (com comes from the yo form of the verb in indicative: yo como )

tú comas

él, ella, usted coma

nosotros comamos

ustedes, ellos coman

The “go” verbs

These guidelines also hold true for those verbs which are very irregular in theyoordinary tense. Remember the incredibly common-goverbs? Let’s take a look:

1. We’ll start with tener. The yo, indicative form of tener is tengo:

2. Tener is an -er ending verb. So, we switch the ending to the -ar endings: -a, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an

Learner’s advice

These might seem overwhelming – I know they did at first for me! My general advice (and this applies to all grammar, really, but in particular verb conjugations) is to aim forfamiliarity. You just need to be familiar enough with these forms that you will recognise them when you see them again, and none of them (or at least very few) come as a complete surprise to you.

I honestly don’t remember poring over verb tables for hours. I got familiar by looking at them from time to time, but it’s really once you started hearing and using these forms that you’ll learn them properly, and they’ll become second-nature.

The stem-changing verbs

The same principle is at play with the stem changing verbs (also known as “radical-changing verbs”):

1.Start with the yo, indicative form. Let’s take pensar: Yo pienso

2.Pensar is an-ar ending verb. So, we switch to the -er endings: -e, -es, -e, -emos, -éis, -en

Forming the imperfect subjunctive

Yes, there is a whole extra set of conjugations…! However, if you know the preterite (sometimes called the past simple), you’ll learn them quickly. Even if you don’t know the preterite, it shouldn’t take you long to pick these up.

The key things to know:

The stem comes from the ellos form of the preterite, minus -aron or -ieron

Tener: Tuvieron
Hablar: Hablaron
Decir: Dijeron

There are two possible forms, both with exactly the same meaning

However, the first form is always more common:

1. Hablara, Hablaras, Hablara,Habláramos, Hablarais, Hablaran, OR
2. Hablase, Hablases, Hablase, Hablásemos, Hablaseis, Hablasen

Or for an -er or -ir verb:

1. Comiera, comieras, comiera, comiéramos, comierais, comieranOR
2. Comiese, comieses, comiese, comiésemos, comieseis, comiesen