¡auxilio!

dis_honestfamiliar , 4 months ago

You are doing great 😃

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

thank you. I hope your username doesn’t affect the veracity of this encouragement

guillem , 4 months ago

Fun fact: the Basques use “habría” instead of “hubiera”.

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder.

kplaceholder , 4 months ago

Formally, “hubiera”/“hubiese” is only used within subclauses, i.e «si lo hubiera visto, habría hecho algo» etc. They never stand as the only verb and don’t appear in simple clauses. You can’t say “hubiera hecho algo”, it’s “habría hecho algo”. Here, the subjunctive (hubiera) is doing the same job as “were” in english, and the conditional (habría) is equivalent to “would”: «if I were luckier, it would have worked out». This is the case with subjunctives in general, they mostly only ever appear in subclauses other than very specific exceptions (such as negative imperative or vestigial expressions like «Dios quiera que…»). The trick is learning which subclauses use indicative and which use subjunctive :)

Informally, though, natives will tell you that it doesn’t matter because it truly doesn’t. The formula “if (subjunctive) then (subjunctive)” is understood by everybody with the same meaning as “if (subjunctive) then (conditional)”, and you can even use it in formal settings such as when talking to your boss, at least in Spain.

Source: Am native, from Spain. Good luck with the language learning!

lolcatnip , 4 months ago

It’s also made harder for English speakers because the subjunctive form in English is rarely used in a way that’s both correct and distinguishable from a simple past tense verb.

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

only subjunctive I use in english is if I were …

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

thank you karu for the detailed comment!

flooppoolf , 4 months ago

All I know is they’re different in the sense that hubiera is more related to you personally and habría is more related to “was there”

Hubiera echo algo antes de que pasara.

Habría una posibilidad de haber echo algo?

Also I’m more familiar with Mexican Spanish and refuse to speak in Spain’s terms

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

chilango?

flooppoolf , 4 months ago

Puro rancho humilde pareja 😎 (norte)

bjoern_tantau , 4 months ago

*there also wrong

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

their*

CodexArcanum , 4 months ago

thar*

black0ut , 4 months ago

the’r*

kubica , 4 months ago

Can I help? I don't think so. Can I make it worse? Maybe, because there's also "hubiese".

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

ah yes, the legal Spanish. do people use it?

kubica , 4 months ago

It seems to be less common in America. And a bit random in Spain using hubiera and hubiese more interchangeably.

Lemminary , 4 months ago

I don’t think it’s necessarily legal but it does sound more literary.

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

yes, my only known interaction with this formation is in formal settings(and in some YouTube videos from Spain)

black0ut , 4 months ago

Yes, we use it. However, it’s more common to say “hubiera”. There’s no specific rule to differenciate between both, but at least in the center and north of spain we mostly use “hubiera” for first person and “hubiese” for third person.

“Ojalá hubiera podido ir, pero tenía deberes” (yo)

“Ojalá David hubiese venido, se lo habría pasado bien” (él)

As I said, both options would be correct in both cases, and probably in other places they use the words differently.

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

thank you! now I get why do people suddenly switch to using it in Spain. I had always thought it was for fun.

@kubica

InfiniWheel , 4 months ago

Look at it from the bright side, if everyone uses it incorrectly it will eventually become the correct version. That’s how we got so many romance languages in the first place.

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

plus I get to sound native :)

hydroptic , 4 months ago

through the power of ✨ linguistic descriptivism 💫

XeroxCool , 4 months ago

“This is literally killing me” - OP

ironhydroxide , 4 months ago

Wegen dir, oder deinetwegen?

lemmesay OP , 4 months ago

is this German equivalent of a similar thing?