My perspective as a native speaker who doesn’t remember his grammar lessons very well:
The subjunctive mood has a lot of uses, at least in Spain (I’m not really familiar with other varieties of Spanish). Some examples off the top of my head:
1. Counterfactual conditionals: “Si Lee Harvey Oswald no hubiera disparado a JFK, alguien más lo habría hecho” (If Lee Harvey Oswald hadn’t shot JFK, someone else would have), here “no hubiera disparado” is subjunctive and means “hadn’t shot”.
2. To speak about people’s actions or decisions which depend on preferences. “Hará lo que quiera con el dinero” (He’ll do what he wants with the money), here “quiera” is the present subjunctive of “querer”, meaning “to want”.
3. To speak about properties of unknown entities. “Quien pueda trabajar será pagado” (Those who can work will be payed), here “pueda” is the present subjunctive form of “poder”, which means “to be able to”.
Here is a fairly comprehensive list of uses (in Spanish 😉)
I think in general the subjunctive mood conveys some degree of unrealness or subjectivity. You could probably say many of the examples above using indicative mood only, but you would definitely lose some expressive power (I don’t know why this is not the case in other languages)
I remember being super confused when I was learning English because of the lack of a distinct subjunctive verbal form. Say, in “I wish I had had a car back then”, the two “had” have completely different meanings, one for past tense and one for expressing desire. The Spanish equivalent would be “habido” and “hubiera” from the verb “haber” respectively.
My perspective as a native speaker who doesn’t remember his grammar lessons very well:
The subjunctive mood has a lot of uses, at least in Spain (I’m not really familiar with other varieties of Spanish). Some examples off the top of my head:
1. Counterfactual conditionals: “Si Lee Harvey Oswald no hubiera disparado a JFK, alguien más lo habría hecho” (If Lee Harvey Oswald hadn’t shot JFK, someone else would have), here “no hubiera disparado” is subjunctive and means “hadn’t shot”.
2. To speak about people’s actions or decisions which depend on preferences. “Hará lo que quiera con el dinero” (He’ll do what he wants with the money), here “quiera” is the present subjunctive of “querer”, meaning “to want”.
3. To speak about properties of unknown entities. “Quien pueda trabajar será pagado” (Those who can work will be payed), here “pueda” is the present subjunctive form of “poder”, which means “to be able to”.
Here is a fairly comprehensive list of uses (in Spanish 😉)
I think in general the subjunctive mood conveys some degree of unrealness or subjectivity. You could probably say many of the examples above using indicative mood only, but you would definitely lose some expressive power (I don’t know why this is not the case in other languages)
I remember being super confused when I was learning English because of the lack of a distinct subjunctive verbal form. Say, in “I wish I had had a car back then”, the two “had” have completely different meanings, one for past tense and one for expressing desire. The Spanish equivalent would be “habido” and “hubiera” from the verb “haber” respectively.