The Imperfect Subjunctive and When to Use It

The imperfect subjunctive is formed when the indicative clause of the sentence takes place in the past tense, i.e. either as an imperfect or a preterit. Look at the following sentence:

Buster wanted me to leave immediately.

You'll notice that the sentence structure still rigidly adheres to the pattern we previously saw in the present tense subjunctive sentences: an indicative clause followed by a subjunctive, or dependent, clause. In Spanish, we combine these two cláusulas with que, which takes on the meaning of "that", so we can re-write the sentence as such:

Buster wanted THAT I leave immediately.

Now, we can see a lot more obviously the two clauses at work here. When we think of an English sentence to fit in the pattern above, we can visualize the dependency of the subjunctive clause more readily in Spanish. So let's take our new sentence and translate it into Spanish. The imperfect subjunctive conjugation, as well as the imperfect indicative conjugation, is underlined:

Buster quería que yo saliera inmediatamente.

Another example of a sentence that uses an imperfect subjunctive, but with the preterit indicative conjugation:

Julio exigió que Marta entregara la tarea cuando la pidió.
Julio demanded that Marta turn in the homework when he asked for it.

Notice in both instances of past-tense indicative clauses we use the imperfect subjunctive for the same reason we would use the subjunctive in the present tense.

Sigue estudiando,

Professor Joel