Subjunctive: Feelings/Opinions with present/past tense

[Roxerz]

I believe one of the rules with subjunctive is that feelings and opinions trigger subjunctive but can a present tense opinion be used with past tense subjunctive? I believe that in Spanish, if you use present tense, you must keep the whole sentence in present and past with past.

Also, the past tense subjunctive is used when something is no longer possible or isn't possible now but possible later?

I only know how to use them in "si" statements but don't know how to use them outside of the 2 examples below.
Si hubiera ido allá, lo habría conocido mejor
Si fuera rico, compraría un carro


I want to say, "It's weird that my Spanish professor is American and studied in Spain. She speaks very weird."

Es extraño que mi profesora de español sea americana y estudiera en españa. Habla muy rara

[wrholt]

The subjunctive mood is used in a variety of ways. In your post you refer to two distinct usages:

1. Expressing subjective opinions about something, and
2. Conditional statements, specifically counterfactual conditional statements.

Conditional statements ("If X, then Y") have requirements for coordinating the tense and mood of the two clauses; the choices depend on the type of conditional statement. You cite examples of the 2 types of counterfactual conditional statements, which are sometimes called conditional type 3 (your first example) and conditional type 2 (your second example).

Expressing subjective opinions about something allows a much greater degree of flexibility between the tense of the verb in the independent clause and the tense of the verb in the dependent clause. In particular, if you are expressing an opinion in the present about some event in the past, the main verb is properly in the present tense and the dependent is properly in the past tense.

"Es extraño que mi profesora de español sea americana y estudiera (check conjugation chart for -ar verbs) en españa (names of countries are capitalized). Habla muy rara (Is your professor strange? Or is her speaking strange? Adjectives inflect for gender and number; adverbs do not.)"

Aside from the errors I've noted, your translation seems reasonable to me.

[MWoll]

Originally Posted by Roxerz

Es extraño que mi profesora de español sea americana y estudiera en españa. Habla muy rara

You have one major gaff here: "Es extraño que mi profesora de español sea americana" -- most "americanas" speak Spanish natively, with the exception of North Americans and a few other relatively small countries.

America (in Spanish) goes all they way from Canada to the Cono Sur.

"Es extraño que mi profesora sea estadounidense."

Also, "weird" is a vague term that conveys no real information. Is her accent funny? Is her vocabulary unusual? How would you know?

[Roxerz]

Originally Posted by wrholt

The subjunctive mood is used in a variety of ways. In your post you refer to two distinct usages:

1. Expressing subjective opinions about something, and
2. Conditional statements, specifically counterfactual conditional statements.

Conditional statements ("If X, then Y") have requirements for coordinating the tense and mood of the two clauses; the choices depend on the type of conditional statement. You cite examples of the 2 types of counterfactual conditional statements, which are sometimes called conditional type 3 (your first example) and conditional type 2 (your second example).

Expressing subjective opinions about something allows a much greater degree of flexibility between the tense of the verb in the independent clause and the tense of the verb in the dependent clause. In particular, if you are expressing an opinion in the present about some event in the past, the main verb is properly in the present tense and the dependent is properly in the past tense.

"Es extraño que mi profesora de español sea americana y estudiera (check conjugation chart for -ar verbs) en españa (names of countries are capitalized). Habla muy rara (Is your professor strange? Or is her speaking strange? Adjectives inflect for gender and number; adverbs do not.)"

Aside from the errors I've noted, your translation seems reasonable to me.

I meant her speaking is strange. Thank you, I was always under the impression that the adjective had to reflect the noun. I did not realize adverbs didn't follow the rule and no one bothered to correct me when I get that wrong in person.

Originally Posted by MWoll

You have one major gaff here: "Es extraño que mi profesora de español sea americana" -- most "americanas" speak Spanish natively, with the exception of North Americans and a few other relatively small countries.

America (in Spanish) goes all they way from Canada to the Cono Sur.

"Es extraño que mi profesora sea estadounidense."

Also, "weird" is a vague term that conveys no real information. Is her accent funny? Is her vocabulary unusual? How would you know?

I was saying that weird/strange but I guess a better word would be ironic. It is ironic that we don't have a native Spanish speaker as a professor for an advanced Spanish class. Yes, her accent, words, and pronunciation are all weird in the context that we are 50 miles from the Mexican border with 26/30 of the students are Mexican-Americans and the area has a huge Spanish speaking pool to choose from. She mixes her accent with a castellano accent while still pronouncing the American R and O sounds. One student corrects her spelling and grammar quite a bit. In the US, my first teacher was Peruvian, second was Chilean and then I did a year in Mexico so I had native speakers as professors and we never used vosotros nor the z/c sound which I forget is called.

As for the American part, in English, I can't think of anything else to call a US citizen besides American and we just literally translate it to americano/a even though we learn estadounidense which is quite a mouthful. I think I had the same conversation with a few Colombians while I was there that everything from Canada down to Chile is Americano.