Talking about the Past: the Past Subjunctive Tenses

The Past Subjunctive

There are two different forms for the past subjunctive, and both are equally correct, but the form most commonly used all over the Spanish-speaking world is the imperfect subjuctive.

It is important that you be familiar with the preterite indicative conjugations, because the imperfect subjunctive is formed from the ellos form of the preterite indicative. Even the irregular forms come directly from the preterite indicative third person plural form. If you aren't able to conjugate the preterite indicative, now is the time to master this very important verb tense.

Once you have learned and can use this preterite form, conjugating the imperfect subjunctive is actually quite easy.

Let's take our -ar model verb hablar. The preterite indicative third person plural (ellos) form is

• hablaron

To conjugate hablar in the imperfect subjunctive, take hablaron and change the -o- to an -a-, which gives us hablaran, the base form for the imperfect subjunctive conjugation of this verb:

HABLAR
yo	hablara
tú	hablaras
él/ella, Ud.	hablaran
nosotros	habláramos
vosotros	hablarais
ellos/ellas, Uds.	hablaran

The same process is applied to -er and -ir verbs.

COMER  The preterite third person plural (ellos) form is comieron. We change the final -o- to an -a-, which gives us comieran, the base form for the imperfect subjunctive:

COMER
yo	comiera
tú	comieras
él/ella, Ud.	comieran
nosotros	comiéramos
vosotros	comierais
ellos/ellas, Uds.	comieran

VIVIR  The preterite third person plural (ellos) is vivieron. Changing the -o- to -a- gives us vivieran, the base form of the imperfect subjunctive:

VIVIR
yo	viviera
tú	vivieras
él/ella, Ud.	vivieran
nosotros	viviéramos
vosotros	vivierais
ellos/ellas, Uds.	vivieran

Note that, just as in the present subjunctive, the yo and él/ella, Ud. forms are identical, so once again, in order to avoid ambiguity, the subject pronoun may have to be used.


Another conjugation option is to use the preterite subjunctive instead of the imperfect subjunctive. This conjugation is used more frequently in Spain and is not as common in Latin America.

The preterite subjunctive conjugation can be formed by substituting -se for the
-ra of the imperfect conjugation:

• yo hablase, comiese, viviese
  tú hablases, comieses, vivieses
  él/ella/Ud.  hablase, comiese, viviese
  nosotros hablásemos, comiésemos, viviésemos
  vosotros hablaséis, comieséis, vivieséis
  ellos/ellas/Uds. hablasen, comiesen, viviesen
  

Remember: the imperfect and preterite subjunctive conjugation base form is built on the ellos form of the preterite indicative with the -o- changed to -a-.