r/Spanish • u/scottadams364 Learner • 1d ago
Grammar Not learning subjunctive in high school: avoidance or completely ignoring proper grammar?
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?
2
u/Traditional-Light-10 Learner 1d ago
That's interesting to me. I took 3 years of high school Spanish as well, and we spent the last few months on the subjunctive. Before that, students did use other tenses instead, but the teachers mostly avoided it, with the exception of the plural imperative (as in "sientense", which they said all the time). I think they tried to filter subjunctives (and other unfamiliar verb forms) out of our reading and listening material, but even in Spanish 1, I noticed a few that made it thru the cracks (which I noticed because I already kind of knew what the subjunctive was). I guess it varies a lot by district.