Subjunctive II
What is the Subjunctive and when do we use it?
We express our thoughts about real things and events in the indicative mood. But, we also love to speculate about hypothetical or imaginary situations. If we only had a sense for the real and not a sense for what is possible, we would be very limited both in our mental activities and our freedom.
One could say the subjunctive is the speculative mood that allows our minds to transcend the real and move into the sphere of potential forms of existences and possible or impossible situations.
Why have we waited so long to study the subjunctive?
It is used mostly in subordinate clauses. In particular, the conditional conjunctions require the subjunctive quite often. We will also study hypothetical comparisons. The subjunctive is used in the indirect speech, that is when reporting on someone else's speech. Since most Germans use the indicative for indirect speech, we will focus only on the uses of subjunctive that we already mentioned.