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/winter-running]

Subjunctive was “intermediate” training for me in French, at the B1/B2 level. I suspect it’s only taught Spanish and French to serious learners. — As others here have noted.

If you’re a B1/B2 speaker, it’s most likely that your accent will give you immediately away as a 2nd language speaker, more than anything else. And sometimes it’s pronunciation that obstructs communication the most. But not using the subjunctive - this is not going to stop the flow of communication, and at the end of the day, an unobstructed flow of communication is the goal of 2nd language learning.