Spanish: An Essential Grammar

No negó que hubo un error.

He didn’t deny there had been a mistake.

Conversely, other verbs and expressions only come to express doubt or

uncertainty when used negatively and only then require the subjunctive:

Él no dice que estés equivocado.

He does not say that you are wrong.

No creo que vaya a quedarse contenta.

I don’t think she will be pleased.

No es que hayan aceptado la propuesta.

It is not that they have accepted the proposal.

No me parece que sea importante.

It does not seem important to me.

Other phrases that are similar in this respect include:

no está claro que it is not clear that

no es verdad que it is not true that

no es seguro que it is not certain that

no significa que it does not mean that

Particularly in Latin America, the subjunctive can also be found after

phrases which place an alternative limitation on the level of certainty, such

as lo más cierto es que ‘the most likely outcome is that’, casi es seguro que

‘it is almost certain that’:

Casi es seguro que renuncie [LA].

It is almost certain that he will give up.

Subjunctive after verbs or phrases which express a feeling or

personal opinion

This use of the subjunctive is triggered by phrases with meaning such as

‘to be sorry that’, ‘to be pleased that’, ‘it is terrific that’ or ‘it is important

that’. There are four basic patterns in Spanish.

(a) The subjunctive is used after ser/estar+ adjective + que(this corre-

sponds to the case in which the main subject in English is impersonal ‘it’):

Es aburrido que pongan tanto fútbol en la tele.

It’s boring that they have so much football on TV.

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