What is the Subjunctive?

The subjunctive, despite sometimes being referred to as a tense, is in fact a mood. The reason for this is because it's used by speakers to express actions depending on certain factors. These factors can include emotion, uncertainty, desires, judgement or actions that have not taken place. Whereas the conjugations of verbs in the indicative form (i.e. 'normal' tenses such as the preterite, present or conditional) express fact of what has happened, is happening or will happen; the subjunctive depends on the context in which the speaker is describing actions. Like the indicative, there are multiple tenses of the Subjunctive. These can include the present, imperfect, preterite perfect and pluperfect, but follow different conjugation patterns to the indicative. In Spanish, there are a number of scenarios in which the subjunctive is used and any learner of Spanish has to know when the subjunctive applies. When trying to identify the subjunctive, there are phrases that, when used, mean the subjunctive conjugation of the verb must follow. For instance, the simple phrases "no creo que..." or "no pienso que..." must be followed by the subjunctive because the speaker is expressing doubt about a situation. This is one of many examples when the subjunctive is necessary, however there are ways of knowing when to use it and have to be learnt. One acronym could be WEIRDO, which covers: Wishes, Emotion, Impersonal observations, Recommendations, Desires and (use of the phrase) Ojalá. Formation is made up of a conjugated indicative verb e.g. "deseo", plus the conjunction "que" which is needed in order to form the final subjunctive conjugation of another verb. An example phrase would be "Espero que haga calor este verano", which shows desire (Espero que=I hope that) and the present tense conjugation of the verb "hacer" (haga).