Subjunctive in both phrases.... - Page 2

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:

Actually, Pablo, have you seen one of those old Western movies in English? There is definitely a distinctive way that they wrote the lines for the Indians in those movies that I'm sure is what prompted them to use "hablar en indio" when they dubbed the movies into Spanish.

Indian talk in English for what you wrote would be something like "Sitting Bull want to smoke peace pipe with Buffalo Bill. Then Sitting Bull ride horse away from here. Sitting Bull like peace pipe...." or whatever.

Anyway, I'm still trying to connect "Indian talk" with the Spanish subjunctive... Are you saying that it translates to the English "Indian talk"?

White man speak with forked tounge :D

:thumbsup:

Not really, as a matter of sober fact, I never saw these in English, always in the Spanish dubbed version... But what I was trying to say, is that when I see some attempts of using an Indicative or Infinitive in Spanish (which would be correct in English, and not 'Indian talk') reminds me this "Indian talk". Probably because the Spanish Subjunctive gets into a level of complexity that "seems" very obvious to the Spanish speakers, but we don't quite get around to explain it to English speakers... except by way of examples.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Well, not sure if "forked tounge" but maybe I should not have a loose tongue... and avoid tongue-in-cheek comments... :rolleyes: :D

Well, I think I tried to explain above, why all the abrupt territories of the State of Subjunctive should remain under control of the white men... and the plains of Indicative can be a perfect and satisfactory space for the natives... :wicked:

(All kidding aside, I hope you get what I mean...) :)

I'm getting there ......... sloooooowly. I really, really want to get a feel for the use of the subjunctive, so I am definitely going to keep plugging away at it.....

Okay, we'll try to help in the process!