Comparative Grammar 6.2. Imperfect Subjunctive Tense in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, & French

In this comparative grammar lesson of Romance languages, we study the imperfect subjunctive tense in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, & French. The imperfect subjunctive, similar to the present perfect in the subjunctive, is used to express desires and wishes. However, these desires and wishes are often in the past or refer to unlikely events or possibilities.

Table of Contents

• Conjugation
• Uses of the Imperfect Subjunctive
  • Expressing Past Desires, Wishes, Feelings, Requests, and Recommendations.
  • Unlikely or Hypothetical Conditional Statements.
  • Expressions that contain unlikely or hypothetical events in the present or the future.
  • Polite Requests in Spanish
• Level VI – Fluent

In French, the imperfect subjunctive tense exists only in formal writing and remains mostly a literary tense. The present subjunctive or the imperfect indicative tense is often used instead, as shown in the following example.

Conjugation

In Spanish and Portuguese, the stem used to form the imperfect subjunctive conjugation comes from the third-person plural form of the preterite rather than the infinitive, that is:

1. In Spanish: the preterite that follows “ellos” or “ellas” minus the final “-ron.”
2. In Portuguese: the preterite that follows “eles” or “elas” minus the final “-ram.”

Next, one of the following two endings is attached to the stem in Spanish:

In Portuguese, there is only one set of endings that can be added:

All verbs follow these conjugation rules, and there are no irregular verbs.

In Italian, to form the stem of the verb needed for regular verb conjugation, we drop the final “-re” of the verb and attach the conjugation suffix. The suffixes are the same for the three types of verbs.

There are a few irregular verbs in Italian. Verbs that are irregular in the imperfect indicative are also irregular in the imperfect subjunctive. Here are the most common irregular verbs:

Uses of the Imperfect Subjunctive

Let us discuss the common uses of the imperfect subjunctive and check some examples:

Expressing Past Desires, Wishes, Feelings, Requests, and Recommendations.

Whereas the present subjunctive is used to express opinion, possibility, and feelings such as fear, doubt, hope, desire, etc., about something in the present or the future, the imperfect subjunctive can be used similarly, but when the hope, desire, feeling, etc. itself is in the past.

For example, using the present subjunctive, we can say:

If that hope or desire occurred in the past, the imperfect subjunctive should be used in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, whereas the present subjunctive is often used instead in French:

Unlikely or Hypothetical Conditional Statements.

As discussed previously, conditional statements that contain hypothetical or unlikely assumptions, such as “if I were you,” “if I were the president,” and “if I had a lot of money,” the imperfect subjunctive should be used in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, whereas the imperfect indicative is often used instead in French:

Expressions that contain unlikely or hypothetical events in the present or the future.

We have previously discussed the use of “ojalá” in Spanish, and “oxalá” and “tomara” in Portuguese, in the present subjunctive to express hope for something to happen in the present or the future, for example:

“Ojalá” in Spanish, and “oxalá” and “tomara” in Portuguese, can also be used along with the imperfect subjunctive to express hope that something, which is unlikely or improbable, would happen in the present or the future, for example:

In Italian, if “anche se” is followed by the imperfect subjunctive, the meaning would change to “even if” and the preceding phrase is often in the conditional tense, that is, for example:

Similarly, in French, if “même si” is followed by the imperfect indicative, the meaning changes to “even if,” and the preceding phrase is often in the conditional tense, for example:

Polite Requests in Spanish

It is also very common to use the imperfect subjunctive in Spanish to make polite requests, for example:

Next: Pluperfect Indicative Tense

Back to: Comparative Grammar Lessons

Other lessons in Level VI: