When you learn Spanish, one of the topics that often becomes a headache is the subjunctive.
Today I’m not going to go over all the uses of the subjunctive, but only one useful curiosity if you’re learning Argentine Spanish. First let’s review a couple of points.
As you know, the present indicative for “vos” is very similar to the infinitive:
| Infinitive | Vos (present indicative) |
| cantar | cantás |
| correr | corrés |
| vivir | vivís |
One key point is that both forms have the stress on the last syllable (that is, the strong syllable is the last one):
| Infinitive | Vos (present indicative) |
| cantar | cantás |
| correr | corrés |
| vivir | vivís |
On the other hand, the present subjunctive, besides changing the vowel, places the stress one syllable earlier. So:
| Infinitive | Vos (present subjuntive) |
| cantar | cantes |
| correr | corras |
| vivir | vivas |
The curious fact is that very often, in Río de la Plata Spanish we form a subjunctive with stress on the last syllable. This happens by influence of the stress pattern in the indicative. So that “Río-Platense subjunctive” looks like this:
| Infinitive | Vos (present indicative) |
| cantar | cantés |
| correr | corrás |
| vivir | vivás |
The striking thing appears with irregular verbs.
On the one hand, regular forms appear for verbs that are irregular in the standard subjunctive (that is, the stem doesn’t change where we would normally expect it to). For example:
| Infinitive | Present subjuntive | Present subjuntive rioplatense |
| empezar | empieces | empecés (not *empiecés) |
| jugar | juegues | jugués (not *juegués) |
This happens because, as we said, we’re keeping the stress on the last syllable, and we don’t affect the “weak” vowels that normally change.
However, with some irregular verbs we can see the stem change — but into forms we wouldn’t expect:
| Infinitive | Present subjuntive | Present subjuntive rioplatense |
| pedir | pidas | pidás (not *pedás) |
| repetir | repitas | repitás (not *repetás) |
| corregir | corrijas | corrijás (not *correjás) |
(and many others in this group)
Finally, the same happens in the negative imperative (since it uses the present-subjunctive forms): “No empecés”, “No jugués”, etc.
The forms we’ve seen in this post coexist with the regular subjunctive (I, for example, use both). So it’s not mandatory to use them if you want to speak Argentine Spanish. What is important is that you can recognize them and understand their meaning.
If you want to speak the Spanish of Argentina, it’s essential to take lessons with a qualified tutor (and from Argentina), because teachers from other countries typically don’t include an Argentine perspective.
I’ll leave you a classic “song from the terraces” where you can see this phenomenon:
“A mí no me interesa en que cancha jugués…”
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