JPablo
November 01, 2010, 12:26 AM
This all makes sense... Rusty's answers are exactly on point, and I appreciate the rest of contributions. Just reading the last one by Perikles, made me think on what we used to call in Spain "hablar en indio" (talking Indian) which was used in the dubbed Western films some 30 or 40 years ago, when I was a kid.
I am making this comment, not as an "off-topic" one, but one that may help English natives to get a better hang of the subjunctive... (If it doesn't help, then, fine, put it aside as an "aside" comment...)
The "Indian talk" in Spanish was simply putting all the verbs in INFINITIVE, and forget about any conjugation... That shows that one is "Indian" when speaking... (*Toro Sentado querer fumar pipa de la paz con Búfalo Bill...) (Sitting Bull wants to smoke the pipe of peace with Buffalo Billl...)
In the case of,
No quisiera que otra gente me oyera.
The "Indian" version would be...
Mí, no querer que otra gente oírme.*
(I don't know if in English there is such thing as this "Indian talk", but I'd think that if you can make it Subjunctive in Spanish, probably you'd be right...)
In the case of "I would not like other people to hear me" I guess you could go with something (incorrect) like "I not to like other people to hear me"* or *I would not like that other people could hear me" or
"I would not like that other people could possibly hear me".
"I would not like that the possibility existed for other people to hear me".
The last two examples are the somewhat "unpacked" Spanish thought... that goes into the usage of Subjunctive... :twocents:
I am making this comment, not as an "off-topic" one, but one that may help English natives to get a better hang of the subjunctive... (If it doesn't help, then, fine, put it aside as an "aside" comment...)
The "Indian talk" in Spanish was simply putting all the verbs in INFINITIVE, and forget about any conjugation... That shows that one is "Indian" when speaking... (*Toro Sentado querer fumar pipa de la paz con Búfalo Bill...) (Sitting Bull wants to smoke the pipe of peace with Buffalo Billl...)
In the case of,
No quisiera que otra gente me oyera.
The "Indian" version would be...
Mí, no querer que otra gente oírme.*
(I don't know if in English there is such thing as this "Indian talk", but I'd think that if you can make it Subjunctive in Spanish, probably you'd be right...)
In the case of "I would not like other people to hear me" I guess you could go with something (incorrect) like "I not to like other people to hear me"* or *I would not like that other people could hear me" or
"I would not like that other people could possibly hear me".
"I would not like that the possibility existed for other people to hear me".
The last two examples are the somewhat "unpacked" Spanish thought... that goes into the usage of Subjunctive... :twocents: