SVDP School

The subjunctive mood is much more commonly used in French language than it is in English. It is also much more commonly used in Spanish language than it is in English. So what is this subjunctive and why does it cause so much bother with students?

Firstly what is the subjunctive mood? (It is not technically speaking a tense…. a tense describes the ‘TIME’ of an action, a mood is more the ‘FEEL’ of the action… e.g. if you must do something, if you command something, if there is doubt about something…. then it is a mood. Anyway no big deal, lots of text books even call it a tense… so it doesn’t really matter too greatly).

In English we say things like ‘I was happy, you were happy , he was happy ….’

In this case we do not say ‘I were….’

But we do say things like ‘If I were you…’ which is an example of a subjunctive.

Get it? We don’t say ‘If I was you…’ But if we did say that people would still understand our meaning.

So it is just a change of a verb when there is a bit of doubt about the outcome of something.

Other times a subjunctive is used is when there is some emotion attached to an action or a result of an action. Where there is disbelief, pleasure, fear, sorrow, happiness, joy, regret, or other emotion.

It is also used where there is some element of doubt, possibility, conjecture, impossibility of something happening or where there is a need. It is also used after certain verbs expressing doubt, emotion, desire or a wish.

Language learning texts also tell us that the subjunctive is used with an indefinite or vague antecedent clause. Wow – what does that mean. It means something that something is expressed which is not exact. Here’s an example in English:

I want a boss who is supportive.
I want a husband who is hard working and honest.
I want sons and daughters that achieve success.
I want to work with people who share my views on life.

These sentences would use the subjunctive in French.

A thing to be mindful of is that you do not need to worry about the use of the subjunctive until you are well progressed with your studies, because you will be understood if you just use the indicative form of the verb.

To form the French subjunctive do the following:

• Take the ils form of the present tense.
• Drop the ‘ent’ and add the endings
• e – es – s – ions – iez – ent.

You will note that the endings of the nous and the vous conjutions is the same as the imperfect tense (imparfait). Here is an example of a fully conjugated subjunctive in French.

Let’s look at mentir - to lie.

• Take the ils form and drop the -ent.
• mentent becomes ment-
• add the endings – e – es – e – ion – iez – ent

je mente
tu mentes
il mente
nous mentions
vous mentiez
ils mentent

There are some small variations with some verbs like venir - to come.

ils viennent - they come – the present tense of ils.

• Drop the -ent
• vienn-
• add the endings
• e – es – s – ions – iez – ent.

In the case of venir the nous and vous forms take the imperfect form (no double n).

je vienne
tu viennes
il vienne
venions
veniez
ils viennent