Postby the1whoknocks » Wed May 31, 2017 9:11 pm
The Spanish Subjunctive Up Close - A workbook designed to give "in-depth coverage of this essential element of grammar."
After two months of sporadic work, I’ve finally finished TSSUC and think it was very much worth my time, although it didn't have to take that long to complete it. This workbook begins with explaining, in a very broad sense, when the subjunctive is used and how to form it’s four tenses. Things got interesting here because I was expecting the usual WEIRDO explanation. That came, but the author went further by suggesting that readers not think of the subjunctive in terms of what is known, or believed to be true, but instead in terms of the clauses involved, be they:
• subordinated noun clauses
• subordinated adjective clauses
• adverbial clauses or
• hypothetical or contrary-to-fact statements.
It’s this style of presentation that makes TSSUC unlike any other resource I’ve read on the subjunctive until now.
Each chapter begins with a roughly 3 page explanation of it’s area of focus, and ends with about 6 pages of different exercises designed to drill the concept. The exercises include:
• “match the following independent clauses on the left with their correct dependent clauses on the right’
• “fill in the blanks using the proper for of verbs in parenthesis”
• “translate the following from English to Spanish/ Spanish to English” drills designed to practice
• Fill in the blanks, using either present indicative/subjunctive, imperfect indicative/subjunctive, to preterit indicative of the verbs in parenthesis.
• On line A, translate the following cause-and-effect, or factual or if-then, statements. Then, on line B, transform them into hypothetical statements, in Spanish. In a few cases hints have been given, but a god dictionary could be helpful.
• Etc.
Overall, I thought the exercises were well designed and helpful, but could have been a bit more challenging. The number of exercises provided throughout the book was sufficient for me, but someone looking to drill the subjunctive ad nauseam, may want supplement TSSUC with another resource. For me, neither of the previous two criticisms were a real deal-breaker since time spent with native materials, and other courses like FSI and GdUdE will provide further reinforcement.
It’s easy to take a quick run through the table of contents; the book is divided into 7 chapters. The first chapter deals with how to form the different tenses. The second chapter tries to answer the question: which subjunctive is the right one, once it’s determined that it should be used. The following four chapters explore each of the different clauses that may trigger the subjunctive, and the final chapter ties everything together with a series of comprehensive exercises designed to practice all that had been taught throughout the book.
Things I liked about the workbook:
-1. It went beyond WEIRDO – Explaining how the use of the subjunctive often depends on the type of clause involved really brought things into perspective for me. I’m not sure I saw the subjunctive explained in that way, before.
-2. Explanations are comprehensive, but short and supplemented with examples - Each chapter only had about 3 pages of explanations and 6 pages of exercises. This would be equal to about a 1.5-2 pages of and FSI sized text, followed by exercises. The examples were often contrasted with cases in which it may seem appropriate to use a certain tense, but not be.
-3. Explanations were only as technical as they needed to be, and practical – Sure, I had to remind myself of the different types of clauses and a few other grammatical terms, but overall, I’d say that took 10-15 minutes to do. For the most part, there was no un-necessary technical jargon.
-4. The course itself was short – This, I found, kept the author to the essentials. I felt the attitude of the author was, “I’ll tell you everything you need to know about the subjunctive, but nothing more … ok, maybe just in the first chapter where we’ll review how it’s formed … but nothing else.”
-5. The author tries to explain the logic of the subjunctive as a native Spanish speaker sees it, but afterwards, contrasts it with how we may express something in English.
-6. The answer key has explanations, where appropriate. - A tutor wasn’t needed to use this book.
-7. The progressiveness and controlled nature of the exercises – In the first couple chapters, the reader is told precisely what kind of answers are expected. For example, the first chapter explains that the subjunctive will be used in all cases, later, it’s decided that only certain forms of the subjunctive will be expected, and by the final chapter, it’s a ‘free for all’ with the student left to think their way to the correct answer which may involve any form of the subjunctive, or not.
Could the course have been better? Sure! However, beyond what I’ve read in TSSUC, and the time I’ve already spent learning about the subjunctive, the only thing left to do is to listen and read a lot; exposure, interaction and time are now the missing ingredients.
The 'course' is marketed towards upper intermediate-advanced students. Although I didn’t learn anything that I considered to be particularly advanced, it was very helpful to have a solid understanding of how conjugate the different forms of the subjunctive and, at least a basic idea of how they function. The meat and potatoes of this book are; the explanations that detail when the subjunctive may be required, and examples distinguish between shades of meaning. In my opinion, I don’t think I would have benefited from TSSUC as much had I still been grappling with things like the third person plural of the preterit, for example. Not that it’s hard to progress through the book otherwise, just that it would have probably taken me longer and have required more supplementary material since this book is primarily focused on drilling how and why it is used, not how to form it.
Any special technique to progress through the book?
Not really.
I ran through the first chapter where conjugations were reviewed, but past there, I went as slowly as my attention span would allow. Also, I highlighted key examples or points that I either, felt were helpful, or completely new to me; there are between 2-7 things highlighted in each chapter. A few months down the line, I might re-read only the highlighted sections of the book as a refresher.
Many concepts stuck pretty well because I had either been encountered them many times before (reading, listening, writing corrections, tutors, etc), or because I was already quite familiar with being correction on the subjunctive and using it in certain contexts.
Chapter 5 has a list of “always adverbial expressions” and “sometimes adverbial expressions”. I added the “always” category to Anki and took time to really think about why those from the “sometimes” category were as they were.
Other than that, I did every single exercise as intended. I usually don’t do this, but because it’s such a short book, I decided to milk the book for all it was worth. Also, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking I could do the exercises, when in fact I couldn’t.
… and with this, I’ve completed the first of three courses I intend to complete as part of the Output Challenge. Now, its on to FSI Spanish & the rest of GdUdE C.
Personal notes:
- Although not too often, I found myself misspelling the imperfect subjunctive of verbs that have irregular stems. “trajeran” is one example. For some reason I tried to include a y in there.
- "Anticipation" is a large part of the “sometimes list."
- Belief vs doubt – creer vs dudar/ no creer
- I’ve been overusing the imperfect subjunctive, at times. I always understood that the imperfect subjunctive can be used to make a request in a more polite way; much like the use of the conditional. According to how I now understand things, in certain contexts, the imperfect subjunctive can be more like beseeching than asking politely.
- The subjunctive is a set of verb forms required in clauses of certain types; that’s all. What one knows or believes to be true is irrelevant for determining whether the subjunctive should be used. Think logic & function of subjunctive … not English.
- Surprisingly, I actually “know” how to use the subjunctive better than I thought. None of the exercise were hard. The few times I got something wrong, I usually understood why. With time and mindfulness, I think things will become more automatic.
7 x
"Wax on, wax off" - Mr. Myagi