The Imperfect Subjunctive Conjugation (-AR Verbs)

To conjugate verbs into the imperfect subjunctive, then you must know the third-person plural preterit conjugation. If you are not familiar with the preterit verb conjugation, then I highly recommend you read that section prior to proceeding with this one.

You also must know the concept of "opposite vowel", which you should know if you have already played with the present tense subjunctive mood. As you will start noticing (hopefully), the opposite vowel is playing a large part in the distinguishing of subjunctive mood over the indicative mood.

Let's start with the verb hablar (whose third-person plural conjugation in the preterit tense is hablaron), and try to notice the similarity in suffixes for both the preterit and the imperfect subjunctive.

hablar	"to speak"
yo hablara	nosotros habláramos
tú hablaras	vosotros hablarais
él, ella, Ud. hablara	ellos, ellas, Uds. hablaran

Do you notice the similarity between the aforementioned conjugations and the third person plural preterit conjugations? Although not exact, it still is helpful to remember the pronunciation of the preterit version so as to be able to recall the approximate sounding-out of the imperfect subjunctive when it is required in speech.

Another example of an -ar verb conjugated into the imperfect subjunctive:

pegar	"to paste"
yo pegara	nosotros pegáramos
tú pegaras	vosotros pegarais
él, ella, Ud. pegara	ellos, ellas, Uds. pegaran

The imperfect subjunctive also has another conjugation, although it is more widely used in Spain and Spanish literature than it is in the Western Hemisphere. However, to fully enjoy your Spanish-speaking ability, give these a try! Although they aren't used exclusively in countries like Mexico or El Salvador, they are still able to be understood by the general populace (much like we in the United States can understand British speaking "styles".)


The conjugations for -ar verbs, like charlar("to chat"), are below:

charlar	"to chat"
yo charlase	nosotros charlásemos
tú charlases	vosotros charlaseis
él, ella, Ud. charlase	ellos, ellas, Uds. charlasen