Spanish: Hypothetical Situations & Clauses with Si// situaciones hipotéticas y cláusulas de si
Hypothetical Situations
This is a fairly common occurrence that takes a lot of practice. In Spanish, it requires knowledge of the present subjunctive, the conditional, and sometimes the imperfect subjunctive.
It’s most basic form, the sentence structure looks like this:
Si + subject + past/present subjunctive + subject + conditional….
This roughly translates to, “If I were ___ I would ___.”
(Conversely, you could switch the locations of the subjunctive and conditional verbs if you want to express: “I would ___ if I were ___”)
Here are some examples: (subjunctive, conditional)
Si fuera presidente de los EEUU, recomendaría que la población se quedaran en casa. (If I were President of the USA, I would recommend that the population stays home)
Si pudiera, inventaría una cura para el cáncer. (If I could, I would invent a cure for cancer)
Clauses with Si
I often find myself confused of when I should use the subjunctive when using “si” (if), so here is a break down of three sentences with si and the tenses in them.
Si tengo el dinero, voy a ir/ iré (If I have the money, I will go) - The second clause isn’t in subjunctive because the subject for both clauses is the same.
Si tuviera el dinero, iría (If I had the money, I would go) - The first clause is imperfect subjunctive because it is describing a hypothetical situation, which triggers the second clause to be in the conditional.
Si hubiera tenido el dinero, habría ido (If I had had the money, I would have gone)
Continuar a ler
The first example is wrong :(
It should be: "la población se quedara" in singular, because although it refers to a group of people it is a singular substantive























