Subjunctive II or General Subjunctive
This subjunctive mood is used to make statements that are contrary to fact,
instead of factual statements that are made in the indicative mood. There
are two forms of the German subjunctive: Subjunctive II and Subjunctive I.
Subjunctive II or the general subjunctive is used with if...then
(wenn... dann) statements and conditional sentences. Subjunctive
I or special subjunctive is a less common mood that is used with indirect
discourse.
The present tense of Subjunctive II is derived from the imperfect
tense of the indicative. For weak (regular) verbs, the subjunctive
II is identical to the imperfect tense. For strong (irregular) verbs,
the present tense of the subjunctive II takes the past tense stem of the
imperfect, adds an umlaut where possible, and adds the following endings:
| -e -est -e | -en -et -en |
| sein | haben | werden | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wäre wärest wäre | wären wäret wären | hätte hättest hätte | hätten hättet hätten | würde würdest würde | würden würdet würden | ||
Some exceptions include:
| Imperfect | Subjunctive II |
|---|---|
| brachte dachte durfte konnte mochte sollte wollte mußte hatte wußte | brächte dächte dürfte könnte möchte sollte wollte müßte hätte wüßte |
The past tense of Subjunctive II is derived from the past perfect
tense of the indicative. It is composed of a form of the subjunctive
of sein or haben and a past participle.
Conditional sentences
These sentences are based on an if... then (wenn... dann) pattern in both
English and German. Dann can be omitted in these sentences also.
Remember that wenn is a subordinating conjunction, and forces the
conjugated verb to the end of the clause.
Present Subj. II: Wenn ich Zeit hätte, (dann) ginge
ich ins Kino. If I had time, (then) I would go to the movies.
Past Subj. II: Wenn ich Zeit gehabt hätte, dann
wäre ich ins Kino gegangen. If I had had time, (then)
I would have gone to the movies.
Wenn clauses may be introduced by a verb, and in this case,
wenn disappears and dann may be replaced by so.
Kommt er heute nicht, (so) kommt er morgen. If he's not
coming today, then he'll come tomorrow.
A conditional sentence may begin with the dann clause as well; but
dann is never used and the clause uses normal word order.
Wir trinken den Kaffee nicht, wenn er zu heiß ist. We don't drink
coffee if it is too hot.
Forms of würden + an infinitive
Würde and an infinitive translate to would + infinitive and is more
common than the one word form in the dann clause. Wenn
clauses tend to avoid the würde construction, except with these
eight verbs: helfen, stehen, sterben, werfen, brennen, kennen, nennen, and
rennen. These eight verbs use the würde construction in the wenn
clause because the one word forms are archaic. Moreover, conversational
German tends to replace many subjunctive II forms of strong verbs with the
würde construction. However, this construction cannot be used
with modal auxiliaries, haben or sein.
| Wenn ich Zeit hätte, | dann ginge ich ins Kino. dann würde ich ins Kino gehen. | If I had time, I would go to the movies. |
| Wenn ich Geld hätte, | dann flöge ich nach Deutschland. dann würde ich nach Deutschland fliegen. | If I had money, I would fly to Germany. |
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Indo-European Languages