Adverbial Clauses of Time
Adverbial Clauses of Time
'Cuando' (when) sits right at the edge of everything you've learned about the subjunctive — the same word can trigger either mood, depending purely on whether you're talking about the future or not.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Future time clauses require the subjunctive
cuando llegues, hablaremos (when you arrive, we'll talk) — llegues is subjunctive because it hasn't happened yet
when you arrive, we'll talk — 'arrive', not 'arrives', but not a subjunctive marking either
Any time clause describing something that hasn't happened yet — after cuando, hasta que, tan pronto como — takes the subjunctive, because a not-yet-real future event is exactly the kind of uncertainty the subjunctive exists to mark. English's own future time clauses actually use the present tense ('when you arrive'), not a future or subjunctive form, so there's no verb-form hint carrying over from English at all here.
Habitual or past time clauses use the indicative instead
cuando llego, siempre hablamos (when I arrive, we always talk — habitual, indicative); cuando llegué, hablamos (when I arrived, we talked — past, indicative)
when I arrive, we always talk / when I arrived, we talked — same structure either way
The exact same cuando switches back to the regular indicative the moment the clause describes something habitual or already completed, rather than a pending future event. This means cuando itself doesn't determine the mood — what determines it is whether the event is still hypothetical from the speaker's point in time.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- when you arrive (future)
- English
- when I arrive (habitual)
- English
- until you finish
- English
- as soon as you can
- English
- as soon as he arrives
- English
- while we wait
- English
- before you arrive
- English
- after he finishes
- English
- every time that
- English
- until now