What do all of these sayings/ phrases have in common? be that as it may blessed be ! far be it from me if it please the court if need be truth be told God bless [you | her | him | them | us every one] come what may [God | Heaven] forbid ! perish the thought God save [the Queen | the King | our merry band] suffice it to say “I wish it were summer” “It's not really vital he be involved in this decision” Could any of these be termed wishes, desires or events which are yet to happen?

Notice anything odd about these sentences in German? “Sie sagt, dass sie einen Brief schreibe” “Er sagte, er wisse es” “Er behauptet, er sei Polizist” What do these sentences all have in common?

Even verbs have moods… In German and in English, most verbs are in the indicative mood. This expresses a fact or reality, e.g. “Der mann wartet auf den Bus.” The imperative is a mood used to give commands: e.g. “Warten Sie suf den Bus!” The subjunctive mood signals something which the speaker regards as merely possible, rather than as a fact, e.g. “Wenn ich Zeit hätte, würde ich gern warten”

Konjunktiv I & II The forms of the subjunctive in German fall into 2 groups: Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II. > Konjunktiv I is used to to indicate reported speech, e.g. “Er sagte, er wisse es.” > Konjunktiv II is used to indicate unreal or hypothetical conditions, typically with ‘wenn’: e.g. “Wenn ich im Lotto gewinnen würde, würde ich ein Flugzeug kaufen.”

Forming Konjunktiv I… easy peasy! Step 1: Take the infinitive: e.g ‘haben’. Step 2: Remove the ‘en’. Now you have the root. Step 3: Add the following endings ich habe du habest er/sie/es habe You will see that these wir haben ihr habet are identical to the present Sie haben except for the du, er/sie/es & ihr form! sie haben

Only one exception… phew! Good old ‘sein’ is the one exception to this. Its stem is: sei and is formed like so: ich sei du sei(e)st er sei wir seien ihr seiet Sie seien sie seien

A few more tenses… Unlike the indicative mood, ‘Konjunktiv I’ only has 3 tenses. The present (which we have seen) The future tense (very easy to form!) The perfect tense (also very easy!)

The future- Using the verb machen Alll we need to do is turn ‘werden’ into the subjunctive… using the same rules as before: Remove the –en ending. Add the subjuntive endings to the stem. (nothing happens to ‘machen’ itself!) ich werde machen wir werden machen du werdest machen ihr werdet machen er/ sie werde machen Sie/sie werden machen

Examples He says he will go to Germany> Er sagt, er werde nach Deutschland fahren. She’s asking if you will come tonight.> Sie fragt, ob du heute Abend kommen werdest.

The perfect tense… is formed just like the normal perfect tense, except that the part of ‘haben’ or ‘sein’ (depending on which the verb takes) is in the subjunctive. e.g. Sally says she came to school> Sally sagt, sie sei zur Schule gegangen. Peter claims he did his homework> Peter behauptet, er habe seine Hausaufgaben gemacht.

Konjunktiv II As we said, Konjunktiv II is used to indicate something hypothetical or slightly unreal. It is also used in conditional sentences with ‘wenn’ (this is where we are most likely to come across it… and try to use it!). e.g. “Wenn ich Zeit hätte, käme ich gern mit”. If I had time, I would love to come) >Would indicates that this is only hypothetical. e.g.2. “Wenn Rotkäppchen zu Hause geblieben wäre, hätte der Wolf es nicht gefressen.”

So how do we form ‘Konjunktiv II’? Type 1: Take the imperfect form of the verb and add the same endings as before. e.g. Ich machte, du machtest, er machte etc. Type 2: Some strong verbs (notably haben, sein, werden, kommen, fahren and the modal verbs) all add an umlaut to the first vowel. e.g. Ich wäre, er hätte, wir würden, sie könnte, du möchtest ihr kämet, Sie führen Type 3: some are slightly irregular and simply have to be learnt. e.g. helfen> hülf> ich hülfe, du hülfest, er/ sie hülfe sterben> stürb> ich stürbe, er/ sie stürbe