THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD IN ENGLISH

¨English has no such mood¨, ¨there's no subjunctive in English¨. Possibly two phrases that have come up to your mind when reading this post headline. And I must admit you are partially right, for when we compare the elaborate Subjunctive Mood in languages like Spanish or French to the English subjunctive mood, we realise that the English language has done away with this mood in everyday language and nowadays it is noticeable mainly in three instances:

1. The mandate subjunctive, which is used in that-clause sentences expressing a demand, a recommendation, a proposal or an intention. Thus, verbs like demand, insist, recommend, advise, propose, request, suggest, ask, desire, urge, command are followed by THAT + BASE FORM.

The local government demanded that the company pay the homeless families for the damages.

We insist that they apologize publicly for what they said. 

I urge that the council reconsider his decision.

You may have noticed that the examples above convey a formal register. This use is more common in the US English than UK English. UK English tends to use THAT + SHOULD 

The local government demanded that the company should pay the homeless families for the damages.

In everyday English you would hear statements like: 

I urge the council to reconsider his decision.

“I don’t demand that the government does this for me,” he said. “I don’t feel like I need the government.” This example is found in an article I googled. 

2. The formulaic subjunctive is used in expressions like:

God save the Queen.

Long live the King.

Come what may...

Be that as it may... 

3. The hypothetical If I were... in which the verb form were is a remnant of the English subjunctive:

If I were you, I'd certainly tell him.

If it were expensive, he wouldn't even think of buying it.

In everyday language it is more frequent to hear If it was... 

Other interesting sites (and my thanks to the authors for their work) I recommend to you where you can read more about the subjunctive and do some practice:

• The Englishpage minitutorials
• English Club.com
• Study Spanish.com
• Karen's Linguistic Issues

  

EXPLAIN, RECOMMEND, SUGGEST

These three verbs are very similar in meaning to their equivalents in Spanish (explicar, recomendar, sugerir respectively), and shouldn't imply much difficulty by a Spanish-speaker when using them in English. Unfortunately, they do because Spanish-speakers tend to use them applying the Spanish-verb pattern.


So teachers keep correcting their students when they say statements like:

Could you explain me the difference again?  (¿Podrías explicarme la diferencia de nuevo?) 

I recommend you this film; it's really good.  (Te recomiendo esta película.)

I suggest you that you go and see that film. (Te sugiero que vayas a ver la película.)

(The last example needs some more explanation, which I will tackle in this post as well.)

Verbs like explain/recommend/suggest need to be followed by the preposition to before the indirect object (i.e. to whom you explain, recommend or suggest something), otherwise this object is taken as the direct object. Thus, we can say:

I recommended him for the job. (¨him¨ is the direct object)

He explained the lesson in a very easy way so all the students understood it straight away. (¨the lesson¨ is the direct object)

I suggest a coffee before we go in. (¨a coffee¨ is the direct object)

We must remember to place to before the person to whom we are explaining, recommending or suggesting something: 

I recommended the new film to him.

He explained the lesson to the new students. 

El blog para aprender inglés has published a very good post on the verb recommend, which I encourage you to read:
http://menuaingles.blogspot.com.es/2010/01/como-se-usa-recommend.html


For more instances of recommend and explain please check these online entries:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recommend
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/explain?show=0&t=1328789888


Regarding suggest I suggest that you read the online entry below (check my own example just given as well):
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suggest


So the verb suggest can have three different patterns:

• suggest something (to somebody)
• suggest (to somebody) that + clause *
• suggest doing something

* clause = (1) subject (should) infinitive

                (2) subject + verb form (present/past, depending on the verb tense of suggest)

I suggested a coffee before our visit.

He suggested (to me) that I should call before leaving.

We suggested going to the cinema that evening.

We suggested that he went home straight away.

Lastly, I recommend that you watch this video uploaded by Jennifer ESL explaining the uses of advise, recommend and suggest. 

VERB TENSES vs. TIME REFERENCE

The other day when teaching the present tenses (present simple vs. present continuous) to my new students I approached this subject from a different perspective. I avoided focusing on the usual way, i.e. explaining form and uses, then do some practice through exercises, and aimed to widen my students' scope in the understanding of verb tenses. I focused on building up a communicative frame in their minds which would help them use the present tenses in a more effective way when communicating.

So, instead of starting by explaining form and uses I drew up a timeline on the board and tried to place them into the three time slots -if I may call them like this-: PAST, PRESENT= NOW , FUTURE. I went on saying that time isn't conveyed simply by a verb tense but that there are other words that can convey time. Here are a few examples to illustrate what I'm saying:

I can go with you tomorrow.

John isn't coming to the party on Friday.

I'll send it to you now.

If I *were you I wouldn't do it.

In the first two sentences above we have a time expression -tomorrow, on Friday- to express future but both verbs are present tenses; the verb in the third sentence is a future tense but we're referring to ¨right away¨, or just immediately after I've uttered this statement. Finally, the last example expresses a hypothesis by means of a past verb tense.

* Regarding this example, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that the use of the past tense in English places ourselves in the unreal time. The English verb system lacks subjunctive so there are other ways to express this mode. But this is ¨food¨ for a future entry.

Then, after explaining the uses of both verb tenses in English, I started giving them some situations so that they could respond in a pseudo-communicative way by using the right verb tense. I also introduced the use of the future will for some instances in order to expand their understanding and to avoid restricting to one or another

I went round the class addressing different students with situations like the following:

• The door bell rings and you're sitting in the living-room with your mum. Offer to open the door. I'll open the door.
• You need to know what time the next train is. What do you say to the booking clerk? What time does the next train leave?
• Tell your friend about your plans this weekend. I'm having a haircut on Saturday morning.

Therefore, when we teach verb tenses to our students it's important to draw up this connection between verb form and real time. We can't encapsule a language into pills (let's say ¨labelled formulas¨) and expect that students alone will manage to draw up the connections. We must provide those connections, or a means for them, so that they manage to build up an internal system, which hopefully and gradually, will render accuracy in their fluency.

STUDY PAGES 4 EVERYONE

An interesting webpage with lots of activities for BEGINNER, INTERMEDIATE and ADVANCED learners to practise English:

http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/study%20pages.php

DON'T MISS THE "SONGS" PAGE!!! VERY ENJOYABLE!!!

http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/lyrics%20and%20songs.php

Last review of this site (Churchill House School...): FOR LEARNERS

The section http://www.churchillhouse.com/english/learners.html is addressed to learners and there you can find different interactive activities graded according to levels. These activities focus on grammar exercises so they only involve reading skills. On the other hand they do not imply lots of difficulty but for the fact that you may not know a certain grammar area being tested.

I also recommend that you have a look at the "Exam guide" section if you want to get more information on the different types of English exams.

First Certificate free software (courtesy of Churchill House School of English Language)

On the same site http://www.churchillhouse.com/english/downloads.html you can download a program with some activities to practise for the First Certificate exam (quantifiers, adverbs & prepositions, articles, pronouns, modals and other verb tenses, miscellaneous).

The program is very easy to download and work with, but doesn't go very far in its own aims: "The program is designed to give you special help with Paper 3 of the First Certificate exam, and in particular with the tricky Part 4 - error correction." , as you can read in the introduction.

The "help" button doesn't work so the only type of feedback you can get is whether you have answered the question right or wrong. On the other hand, the practice is dynamic and may help you spot some grammar mistakes you still keep making in these areas. If so, you will need to revise elsewhere.