We continue talking about the Spanish Subjunctive, in this case we are going to talk about the first of the uses of the Spanish Subjunctive. You can follow our video series about the Spanish Subjunctive, to review the content outside of your Spanish class.
Uses of the Spanish Subjunctive (1) – Common Phrases
Frequently we make use of the Spanish Subjunctive without noticing that we are using it. This happens, for example, when we use common phrases like: ¡Que aproveche! / ¡Que duermas bien! / ¡Que tengas suerte!/ ¡Que te diviertas!…
Here are usual phrases -that express wishes- and where the forms: aproveche /duermas/tengas /diviertas are forms of the Present Subjunctive.
*aproveche (present subjunctive of the verb aprovechar, 3rd person singular)
*duermas (present subjunctive of the verb dormir, 2nd person singular)
*tengas (present subjunctive of the verb tener, 2nd person singular)
*diviertas (present subjunctive of the verb divertir, 2nd person singular)
So we can say that: We use the Subjunctive to express wishes in the phrases with the structure ¡QUE + Subjunctive!
On the other hand, we also use subjunctive with other types of common phrases for the expression of wishes, like for example: ¡Ojalá haga sol!/ ¡Ojalá apruebes!/ ¡Ojalá llegues pronto!
In these phrases, the forms haga/ apruebes / llegues are also forms of the Present Subjunctive.
*haga (present subjunctive of the verb hacer, 3rd person singular)
*apruebes (present subjunctive of the verb aprobar, 2nd person singular)
*llegues (present subjunctive of the verb llegar, 2nd person singular)
In a way we can also say that we also use subjunctive to express wishes in common phrases with ¡OJALÁ + Subjuntivo!
Review: There are types of common phrases, standard phrases or made phrases –that rarely change and that we always use the same form- where we use the verb in the subjunctive. These phrases generally express wishes and have the following structures:
¡Que + subjuntivo! –¡Que lo pases bien!
¡Ojalá + subjuntivo! –¡Ojalá no llueva!
Examples:
¡Que todo vaya bien! – I hope it goes well (before a complicated situation)
¡Que te sea leve! – I hope that it’s easy (before a difficult job)
¡Que cumplas muchos años más! – May you complete many more years (at a birthday)
¡Que seáis felices! – May you are happy (at a wedding)
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