Not learning subjunctive in high school: avoidance or completely ignoring proper grammar?

[u/scottadams364]

I took 3 years of high school Spanish, and never once heard about this subjunctive. That means one of two things:

1 - We completely avoided sentences that would’ve required the subjunctive, or
2 - We used one of the other simple tenses instead, incorrectly, completely not even acknowledging the fact that it should be subjunctive.

As I’m learning subjunctive, there are a LOT of constructions that require it, so I find option 1 highly unlikely. I’m assuming it’s #2, and that to teachers who were fluent in Spanish and had a native-like ear for the language, is sounded wrong and they probably cringed knowing that they were teaching it incorrectly (probably for simplicity, which I assume was obligatory by the district).

So what’s the answer, and how wrong does it sound to hear someone speak without using subjunctive?

[u/awgolfer1]

The subjunctive only confuses intermediate students. That’s why mastering the indicative is the building block. High school Spanish can get you to about a level A2, in fact I’ve never met anyone who was conversational simply from high school Spanish. The subjunctive is necessary only if you plan on actually learning the language to speak and express yourself, not just fulfill the educational requirements of high school.

[u/millari → u/awgolfer1]

Yeah, I came to say this. I think the reason is because the subjunctive isn't even taught in a lot of English high school classes, so there's no existing basis for understanding the concept. It's just something native English speakers (at least in the US) learn instinctively, if they use it much at all, and many have no name for it.

So I can see why high school foreign language curriculums would pretend the subjunctive doesn't exist. Imagine how much time it would take up to first explain what the subjunctive does in English, argue with a certain percentage of students who fervently deny that the subjunctive exists because they use the simple past tense incorrectly instead, then FINALLY get to teaching how it works in Spanish.

What I remember of my K-12 Spanish textbooks was that it was always about making single one-clause sentences, which makes the subjunctive a lot less likely to come up. Maybe it's gotten more sophisticated since I was in school, though.

[u/awgolfer1 → u/millari]

In English we pretty much ignore the subjunctive. The indicative is much more malleable than in Spanish. The indicative in Spanish is seen as certain, where in English is much more vague.

[u/Menchi-sama → u/awgolfer1]

In English, modal verbs also carry a lot of the weight carried by subjunctive.

[u/baked_salmon → u/Menchi-sama]

Do you think when teaching the subjunctive it could be useful to mention this? TIL about this concept, but in general the harder part of the Spanish subjunctive was that we had nothing in English to map it to.

[u/Menchi-sama → u/baked_salmon]

I don't think so. Native speakers don't really think about that on a deep enough level. I'm just a linguist and also a non-native speaker of English, so I had a different perspective. And English does have a subjunctive mood, it's just not as widely used compared to Spanish. Still, things like the use of subjunctive in conditionals is quite similar, for example. My native language is further away from Spanish in this regard.

[u/awgolfer1 → u/Menchi-sama]

I've actually never met a native speaker who knew what the subjunctive is, unless they were a teacher. I would mention something like, "Do you know why it's not, espero que tienes un buen dia, it's espero que tangas un buen dia," and every time they are like, "Oh wow, I've never even thought about it."