hey lindsay how's it going it's going awesome aubry how are you how's everything
i am really great i'm excited for this episode we got a really interesting listener question that is
higher level grammar you guys and i know a lot of our listeners want that they want interesting
higher level grammar but in a way that makes it very understandable so you don't have to
wade through all of the resources online and then just get confused yes guys don't forget that our
motto our vision is connection not perfection but that doesn't mean that we don't learn grammar that
doesn't mean we ignore grammar right aubrey yeah exactly we don't want you guys to be stressed
about making mistakes especially about what we're talking about today subjunctive because
natives make mistakes all the time with subjunctives but it is really interesting
to know it so that you can use it when you want to when you're at work and you want
to sound impressive you want to sound educated it's good to know for sure yes i like the idea
of choosing when we're going to make the mistake and we're aware that we're making the mistake
and choosing when we're going to say it correctly because of who we're around that
is so good exactly what it is with subjunctive you you are probably going to intentionally
make this error or maybe just make it because you've heard natives use it incorrectly so often
and that's such a higher level to just to be able to think like i know what's correct grammar here
but the people i'm talking to might not so i'm going to choose to make this mistake
yeah aubrey i think our listeners are ready for this being able to pick and choose when
to make that mistake and when not to so should i should i read the listener question from oscars
okay my name is oscar i wanted to brush up on my grammar use and i came across
these two sentences she acts as if she were the queen and she talks to me as if she is
my mother i perfectly understand why the first sentence uses past tense were as in she were the
queen but i don't get why the second sentence uses present tense is as in she is my mother it would
be really helpful if you could help me out on this thanks in advance yes i get this so much because
you guys the the problem is number two is actually grammatically incorrect right it's
subjective subjunctive mood so the sentence should be she talks to me as if she were my mother but
you guys probably didn't hear that mistake and even native speakers listening to this podcast
probably wouldn't hear that mistake because you hear it incorrectly so much natives make mistakes
with subjunctive all the time yeah and often don't use it on purpose right lindsay right aubry do you
get this question a lot when you do ielts coaching over on our ielts side of things do students
worry about this when they're preparing for the speaking test we have done a couple of episodes
over on ielts energy about subjunctive just to let our students know how to use it when why but
we were very careful to make sure and tell them don't worry about this an examiner will not
lower your grammar score if you use subjunctive wrong in a sentence like this because it's so
accepted especially in an informal speech on the speaking exam to use it incorrectly that's not
going to affect your grammar score writing is a different situation where it's more formal writing
and it's the same for you guys at work in business if you're giving a presentation to native speakers
they are likely going to hear the mistake and that's where you you want to use subjunctive
correctly so here's the difference is informal speech versus formal speech or formal writing
okay so let's break this down again here aubrey let's go into a little more detail what else do we
need to know about these two and when to make the choice okay so first of all we want to make sure
you guys understand subjunctive is tricky we get it for a few reasons first of all because natives
don't always use it correctly it's accepted to use to not use it in informal speech you will hear it
in songs you'll hear it on tv in movies right just last night after i wrote this episode episode i
heard someone on tv say it would hurt even more if it was you and because i know grammar well
it's a red flag for me i'm like he should have said if it were you guys this is a native speaker
yeah he probably didn't know he was using it incorrectly but even if he did the people he was
talking to wouldn't know so he may have chosen to use it incorrectly to not sound pretentious right
yeah and then there's two songs what show were you watching last night i just thought it was
just that i wasn't going to do it don't be embarrassed it's called the circle it's
reality tv it's on netflix it's so funny it's so funny because people intentionally catfish
they'll like come in pretending it's when you are pretending to be someone you're not so they don't
meet each other in person they don't see each other they just have a profile picture and they
say all this stuff about themselves and some people are being real and some people are like
an old guy or a girl pretending to be a guy and so they're like trying to fool everyone else
they're competing for a hundred thousand dollars but all this funny stuff happens where like two
straight guys will end up flirting or whatever and then they find out and they know it really was
it's interesting yes oh my gosh i have to admit i like some reality tv well i mean reality tv
is where for our listeners actually guys that might be a great place to get real english oh
yes because it's completely it's uncensored scripted unscripted uncensored it's authentic
for better or for worse if people are just being themselves sometimes it's train wreck
authentic right um yes but you guys check that out for to see you know people breaking these rules or
following them depending on who's around where else have we seen it in music so off the top
of my head there are two recent pop songs that intentionally misuse the subjunctive either this
artist didn't know or did know but intentionally didn't use it because they they realized that most
of their audience would think they were making a mistake so the first was gwen stefani she has a
line that says if i was a rich girl i'm not going to sing it but really that should be if i were a
rich girl and we'll go into y and then a taylor swift song where she's saying if i was the man
great song but it should be if i were the man and both of those i hear these songs and it
grates on me a little bit because i know how to use subjunctive correctly but i recognized why
they didn't even if they recognize they should be using the subjunctive text tense yeah so many of
their listeners will think it sounds wrong because natives use it incorrectly so often yeah it wasn't
until i became an english teacher and started teaching the subjunctive that i corrected myself
i think i was making this mistake until my earlier something like that and it's not like people are
going to say oh this person's uneducated right it's about speaking the language of the people
at the right time i love it and i wonder if those singers know it's wrong i'm not sure they probably
know right i would think before they published it someone at their recording agency or some somebody
could have corrected their grammar yeah but they don't because it's used so commonly that it would
actually be weird if they used it correctly it would sound pretentious yeah they're also trying
to make their songs rhyme sometimes too right so there was an old song i can't remember nsync or
boys to bend or who they said i'm down on bended knee and especially back then bent was how it
should be like grammatically people teachers were up in arms it should be bent but i think because
of that song it's become so much more commonly accepted to say bended knee in that situation
like that pop song changed grammar i think that might have been boys i feel like that was boys
yeah anyways guys old school music from the 1980s well let's get back to this so episode 1062 should
we send our listeners to that as a side point just to go yeah we're into this yeah if you guys want
a really good breakdown of subjunctive when to use it why check out episode 1062 lindsey and michelle
did a really thorough dive into subjunctive when we're talking about speaks to urgency
power importance or suggesting something so for example these sentences it's important that
language learners pay attention yeah i suggested that he call me tomorrow instead of he calls right
so go to that episode for a deep dive check it out right yes yeah go ahead no i was just
gonna say guys yeah that's taking subjunctive in another direction right another manifestation
of subjunctive but today is just all about the i and the the were and the was right exactly because
the sentence asco provided he's talking about subjunctive in the past and in the past tense
the subjunctive mood it only applies to the verb be and we just form it using were instead of was
so this is very narrow right this is a very ex a very specific use that we're talking about today
yeah and it's used to discuss unreal situations hypotheticals right what you
wish were different if you were able to change something what would you change
it's fun to use but again don't stress about it if you make mistakes so do natives yeah i remember
teaching in new york i used to always ask the most common question teachers might ask their students
if you if you know to say if i were a millionaire i would right if i were a millionaire aubry what
would you do if you were a millionaire good question i would donate probably all of it
love it donate yeah because i honestly i wouldn't want to be filthy rich as they say
i think it changes people maybe i would keep a little bit but i i would i really believe that i
would give it to people who need it more honestly i love that that's so good solid what would i do i
honestly i'd probably travel a lot um you know they're gonna give it all i wanna travel too
yeah if i were a millionaire i would travel because there's places i feel like i missed
during covid that you know i didn't during the health crisis didn't have a chance to see
and now i need to go back and see them i feel like i need to see the whole world so i feel that too
oh i hear you okay guys we want to point out two sign post words for this way to use subjunctive
and they're if and wish right so if you see those two words you know subjunctive mood is required
so for example with the verb be so for example if he were being honest he wouldn't say that yeah or
i wish i were not addicted to sugar okay you can see this is just with was and were yeah and it can
be any subject but it's just such a very specific use and like we said a hypothetical right yeah
guys unreal situation yeah signposts are really good you know they're like benchmarks they're like
warning signs red flags that should go up and you can expect someone to use this particular
tent so it's almost like the their wake-up call for you to be prepared right these are what help
help us listen better yes for sure and we want to point out guys this is not grammar that you
want to correct if you hear someone use it wrong whether they're a native or non-native speaker
don't correct them they might realize they're using it wrong or they might not but either way
that's going to ruin your connection with them right just let it go let it be a lot of people
use it wrong and they don't care they don't care and so you shouldn't care right okay but
even at work right don't correct someone but this is where i think in a business situation this is
where you want to use it correctly you can make those emails especially in formal business writing
yeah so it's we still want to share this with you so that you understand in a very simple way
how to use this so our role play is going to be in that type of situation where lindsay and i
are debriefing after a business presentation this is a situation where you would want to use
subjunctive correctly okay here we go aubrey go for it all right that went really well but let's
talk about any improvements we could implement next time what would you do differently i wish i
were able to speak more clearly to market value oh yeah that could help us clarify the message
i think so if i were able to provide an analysis with visuals that might make a
difference what if we were more informed about our competitors angle yeah that would help us
know which direction to take ooh sounds like a very high level business conversation here aubrey
right so it really wouldn't be appropriate to use the wrong verb tense here right in this especially
if the person you're speaking to uses very good grammar if they're like oh lindsay started with
the subjunctive so then if i responded with more informal speech not using the subjunctive it
would sound awkward it would sound strange yeah i mean that could actually be a great topic for
another episode aubry we could talk about how important it is to mirror the register
that someone else is using in business right because if you started if you said i wish i
was able to speak more clearly to market value and you used it incorrectly i'm realizing okay
this is a little bit more of an informal chat no big deal and when i asked i probably said
i was gonna say i would probably say what if we was more informed no i wouldn't i just wouldn't
it sounds so bad it's crazy how for natives it's there's such a line drawn between informal speech
and just because the subject is formal we don't hear it used incorrectly as often in this
situation right how bad does that sound to you lindsay for me to say what if we was more informed
about our competitor's angle yeah i mean i'm gonna have to listen more i think part of it is also
that we're a little biased because we're english teachers so we've taught this so many times so for
us it's like nails on a chalkboard yeah right that's true um i would like to like go to a
company and just kind of listen in and see what i hear but i think you're probably right here aubrey
is that you know we do elevate right yeah elevate and i'm realizing what really sounds off there
is when you're using it in first person right i wish i were able that is where it's changing from
was to were yes but when i use we in the past we always say we were yeah you know we were informed
right so then i would never switch it to we was so even if you right i would stick with
the subjunctive and it would still be either way exactly we're more informed right so i'm like why
did that sound so terrible to me oh because it's always we were yeah for sure for sure should we go
through these at all aubry let's do our listeners okay so the first one you used was i wish i were
able to speak more clearly to market value this is such a really impressive phrase here because
when you say speak more clearly to something you're it's a high level way of saying i wish i
were more informed about this yeah and knew more about it so that i could discuss it on a higher
level yeah i feel like guys you should write this down because this is a great business phrase if
you want to start to elevate your business vocab just speak to something super high level and smart
sounding i love it yes for sure high level phrasal verb natives do use it but you automatically sound
pretty impressive when you use that yes i love it and then i said i think so if i were able to
provide an analysis with visuals that might make a difference right if and then here i said instead
of saying if i was able that that would sound bad in the business context is what we're teaching you
guys today instead i said if i were able to right in an imaginary world if i could right the other
one we might use is if i could provide an analysis right exactly that's and if you're nervous about
using subjunctive avoid the um using was and were at all just like you said lindsay and replace it
with could because you said it what you said is also correct to say if i could provide an analysis
yeah then i would feel better about it that also is perfect grammar yeah and then you avoid
the chance of making a mistake with subjunctive mood yeah i mean that should be our goal for our
listeners here guys you want to be able to have that incredible flexibility right where you can
move into an alternative phrase if you're feeling strange about something you're about to say
that should be your goal like that's the sign of 99 fluency which is what we're all working towards
is being able to be flexible there love it exactly right and then the last one what if we were more
informed about right again just hypothetical if this were the reality what would be different
that is when you use this subjunctive mood i love it so what's the secret ways for our listeners
this is good it's good stuff what should we leave our listeners with today operating yeah so again
don't stress about subjunctive native speakers use it wrong all the time but you do want to think
about the difference between informal and formal speech if you're in a formal business situation
you want to use subjunctive correctly so we want to give you guys these tips today listen to this
episode again make sure to take notes because i think this is a really simple breakdown of when
to use subjunctive yeah i love it i mean the key here is knowing when knowing that you're making
a mistake and choosing your mistakes wisely right exactly so good based on the context
yeah good stuff today aubrey i'll see you on the next one thanks for hanging out bye lindsay bye
you