As a French tutor, I have always been fascinated by French grammar and its logic, which is on the whole surprisingly similar to Maths. I find that the subjunctive opens up so many possibilities.
There are many situations in which the subjunctive is used, but I will deal here with one of the most useful and straightforward cases. A lesson would be needed to cover all the details fully.
Think first of the English sentence:
“I want to drink.”
There is only one subject involved: me. The infinitive can therefore be used in French in much the same way as in English:
Je veux boire.
It becomes more interesting when we want to say:
“I want him to drink.”
There are now two subjects involved: him and me.
The infinitive can no longer be used in French in the same way. We effectively need to say:
“I want that he drinks.”
There is then one important additional change. The subjunctive is used in the subordinate clause, “he drinks”, but not in the main clause, “I want”.
The complete sentence is therefore:
Je veux qu’il boive.
and not:
Je veux qu’il boit, which would be incorrect.
A useful way of thinking about this is that wanting introduces an element of uncertainty: the drinking may never actually become reality and is therefore hypothetical.
This does not mean that every sentence expressing uncertainty or “maybe” automatically takes a subjunctive. French has particular verbs and expressions that require it.
This leads us naturally to how the present subjunctive is formed.
Apart from the irregular or semi-irregular verbs in the present subjunctive, the general rule is very useful.
For the je, tu, il/elle/on and ils/elles forms, take the ils form of the present tense and remove -ent to obtain the stem.
The usual subjunctive endings are then:
-e, -es, -e, -ions, -iez, -ent
For the nous and vous forms, the stem often corresponds to the one used in the imperfect tense.
Here is boire in the present subjunctive:
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| que je boive | que nous buvions |
| que tu boives | que vous buviez |
| qu’il/elle boive | qu’ils/elles boivent |
Notice particularly that the nous and vous forms resemble the imperfect forms, while ils boivent is identical in appearance to the present indicative form.
The imperfect subjunctive and the pluperfect subjunctive are extremely rarely used in conversational French and are also uncommon in modern written French.
They should nevertheless be recognised at A Level and beyond, particularly when reading older or more literary texts.
The perfect subjunctive is still used. It is formed simply with the present subjunctive of avoir or être, followed by the past participle.
One could easily be forgiven for thinking that espérer que should automatically be followed by a subjunctive because hope seems to contain uncertainty.
However, in an affirmative sentence, espérer que always takes the indicative rather than the subjunctive.
For example:
J’espère qu’il viendra.
This may be because hope is treated as something sufficiently likely or expected to require the indicative in French.
Negative or interrogative uses of espérer que can behave differently and may take the subjunctive, but the important point for learners is that an ordinary affirmative j’espère que… never triggers it.
Interestingly, Spanish does not treat the equivalent construction in exactly the same way.
The subjunctive can initially appear complicated, but once pupils understand why it is being used and recognise the structures that trigger it, it becomes much more logical.
Rather than simply memorising a list of rules, I find it much more helpful to understand the relationship between the two clauses and to ask what the speaker is expressing: a desire, uncertainty, necessity, emotion or another idea that may require the subjunctive.
As with many aspects of French grammar, understanding the underlying pattern makes the rules much easier to remember.