Quote from a movie

[aleCcowaN]

Correct.

As Angélica says, it's not a hypothetical situation now but the account of what once was a hypothetical situation.

[mwtzzz]

Perfect, that's exactly the explanation I was looking for.

I admit I am still confused. Consider the following sentence:
"El chileno me dijo que si yo le trajera cafe, el me daría vino."

"me dijo" = past tense
"trajera" = past subjunctive

We are using past tense together with past subjunctive. Why can't we do the same with my movie example?

Or is it a matter of past simple versus past imperfect? How would the sentence look if we changed "me dijo" to "me decía" ?

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by mwtzzz

"El chileno me dijo que si yo le trajera cafe, el me daría vino."

That sounds soooo wrong to me. I admit it might be popular-regional or time machine related (because it sounds seventeenth century). The Spanish from New Mexico has this kind of things, not sure if this specific one.

"El chileno me dijo que si yo le traía café, él me daría vino."

If the examples generated in the United States, even from a native Spanish speaker who is permanently living there, take them with a pinch of salt.

[mwtzzz]

Ok .... I'm confused.

well, I asked my wife (she's Colombian) and she says both sound okay to her.

I'll ask my dad, who is a native New Mexican spanish speaker (he grew up speaking it as his first language), and see what he says ...

But, it's very good to know what you are saying, that the subjunctive should not be used together with the past tense. I'm going to try to remember this.

Ok, this is funny. I talked to both my mom and my dad and asked the the same question. My Dad, as I mentioned, is a native speaker from New Mexico, his family goes back generations there (from the time when it was part of Mexico.)

My mom actually speaks a lot of Spanish because when she was a kid they moved to a small village in New Mexico where everyone spoke Spanish. So I put the question to both of them:

My mom says she would use "trujera" because that's how they would say it in the place she grew up.

My dad, interestingly, translated it as "traía".

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Both sentences are correct, but they mean different things:

- El chileno me dijo que si yo le trajera café, él me daría vino. -> This is reported speech: He said this sometime in the past (maybe five minutes ago), but there is still a (somehow remote) possibility that if you brought him coffee, he'd give you wine in return.
This is the same case as it was with "si destruyeran... él perdería..."


- El chileno me dijo que si yo le traía café, él me daría vino. -> This was said in the past and either you took your chance to exchange coffee for wine back then, or you won't have that opportunity again.


By the way, "trujera" is an archaism and now it is considered wrong and uneducated.

[aleCcowaN]

That's why my prevention about people living in the United States, even native Spanish speakers. It's, again, a matter of the time of the story. With your last sentence, I hear it this way:

(Entonces) el chileno me dijo [harp music, like in the old movies, to signify the speaker is taken back to the time this story happened]«Si me traes café, yo te daré vino»

Take a look to the process:

conditional sentence: «si me traes café yo te daré vino»
made into a hypothetical sentence in the present: «si me trajeras café yo te daría vino»
made into a conditional sentence informed as part of the past (result not known or not disclosed) : «si me traías café yo te iba a dar vino"
made into a hypothetical sentence informed as part of the past (informed as something that didn't finally happen):«si me hubieras traído café yo te habría(/hubiera) dado vino»

all of them, as reported speech:
«si le traigo café, él me dará vino»
«si le trajera café, él me daría vino» (this works as an immediate past, like you are translating on the spot "he just said ....")
«si le traía café, él me daría vino»
«si le hubiera traído café, él me habría(/hubiera) dado vino»

«El chileno me dijo que si le trajera café, él me daría vino» sounds like the opportunity is still available, something that the perfective aspect in "dijo" completely denies, with only the imperfective aspect of "traía" and "daría" being capable of stitching the past and the present together.

In everyday language, if the option is still available, most people are going to use present subjunctive with disregard that is correct or not:

«el chileno me dijo que si le traigo café, él me [va a dar/dará] vino»

people with more polished language would probably say:

«el chileno me dijo que si le traía café él me iba a dar vino»

Suppose the option is no longer available because it all is part of the past now. Educated people would say (good for your father):

«el chileno me dijo que si le traía café él me daría vino»

just because the use of conditional knots it to a past situation and not to a past condition that is available in the present (the past imperfect is too "undefined" and by changing it into conditional we know "it's over")

and not so educated would use:

«el chileno me dijo que si le traigo café él me iba a dar vino»

The last instances can be extremely confusing and almost wipe out what you have understood from the previous ones. The key is that uneducated native speakers living in a Spanish speaking environment tend to speak as if a past situation is happening now. They are more on the side of words spoken aloud, and you will notice that they stop a bit looking to you in the eye when they are "living again a situation in the past as they are telling it". That is information about mood that is totally lost in written form but natives have as a part of our experience so "it just sounds on or off".

The moral of this overexplanation is: never overexplain Spanish subjunctive . Just let it sift in your brain little by little.

[poli]

All these variations are also found in English minus the conditional/subjunctive one. In English, the subjunctive is implied with the prior use of the conditional tense.

I still don't think there's any reason to use the imperfect subjunctive in Spanish in this case other than it is a grammatical rule that must be followed despite it's redundancy. (dems da rules) If it were ever used in English as it is used in Spanish, it was put aside years ago for reasons of simplicity, and simplicity doesn't always rule in English as it often does in Spanish.

[aleCcowaN]

Imperfect sounds illogical if you don't understand it does exactly what subjunctive would be expected to do:

«si lo sabía ¡ni me molestaba en ir!»

I've nicknamed it "branched time line". It's like when you used an old style gear lever: you had to press it down to engage reverse, not only move it around. Imperfect, conditional and subjunctive have to be "pressed down". Subjunctive instances are usually dead ends in the rail; conditional uses are sidings; past imperfect is the most versatile, it's like a parallel rail with a different gauge, but the use of "si" can connect it to the main line.

[poli]

...and it just occurred to me that the conditional followed by the imperfect subjunctive is used in English. Here's an example: If I were you I would ...

[mwtzzz]

aleccowan: thanks a bunch for your lengthy explanation. after reading through it, I have a good understanding now. Basically it's a matter of whether you're implicitly "quoting" something you said in the past, versus saying it hypothetically now.

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

By the way, "trujera" is an archaism and now it is considered wrong and uneducated.

Not suprising. Those mountain villages in New Mexico were out of touch with the world for a very long time.

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

In everyday language, if the option is still available, most people are going to use present subjunctive with disregard that is correct or not:

«el chileno me dijo que si le traigo café, él me [va a dar/dará] vino»

people with more polished language would probably say:

«el chileno me dijo que si le traía café él me iba a dar vino»

This definitely has direct equivalent in American English. People will either say:
"He told me if I bring him coffee, he will give me wine."
(this is the "quoting" that I talked about)

-or-

"He told me that if I brought him coffee, he would give me wine", which implies an agreement made in the past which still could be relevant now.