The Fossilised Subjunctive: Set Phrases

You have met the subjunctive when a verb triggers it - a wish, a doubt - and when a conjunction does. This page mops up the last corner: the subjunctive that lives inside fixed expressions. Here the mood is not chosen sentence by sentence; it is baked into the formula. You store these whole, the way you store a phrase in your own language, and reach for them ready-made.

Think of them as the fossilised subjunctive. There is no productive rule to apply, no trigger to spot. The subjunctive is simply part of the shape of the phrase, and the phrase does one job.

Reduplicated concessives: pase lo que pase

The most striking family doubles a verb around a relative word, and both halves go into the subjunctive. The frame is subjunctive + lo que / como / quien + the same verb again. It means "whatever, however, whoever", conceding every outcome at once.

• Pase lo que pase, no me rindo. (Whatever happens, I won't give up.)
• Cueste lo que cueste, lo conseguiré. (Whatever it costs, I'll get it.)
• Digan lo que digan, seguiré adelante. (Whatever they say, I'll carry on.)
• Sea como sea, lo terminamos hoy. (However it turns out, we finish it today.)
• Sea quien sea, no abras la puerta. (Whoever it is, don't open the door.)
• Como quieras. (However you like / as you wish.)

Because you are refusing to assert any single result, none of the outcomes is a fact, and Spanish parks both verbs in the subjunctive. To build a new one, pick the verb that carries your meaning, then repeat it around lo que: hagas lo que hagas (whatever you do), vayas donde vayas (wherever you go).

Ojalá: the bare hope

Ojalá comes from an Arabic phrase meaning roughly "may God grant", and it never changes shape. It simply throws the following verb into the subjunctive, and the tense you pick sets how reachable the hope is.

• Ojalá venga. (I hope he comes.) - present subjunctive, an open hope about the future.
• Ojalá viniera. (I wish he would come.) - imperfect subjunctive, unlikely or contrary to fact now.
• Ojalá hubiera venido. (I wish he had come.) - pluperfect subjunctive, a regret about the past.

So the choice is one of distance. Ojalá llueva hopes for rain that might still fall; ojalá lloviera wishes for rain on a cloudless day; ojalá hubiera llovido mourns the rain that never came. You can add que with no change in meaning: ojalá que ganemos.

Como si: always contrary to fact

Como si (as if) compares reality to something imagined or false, so it never takes the indicative. It takes the imperfect subjunctive for a present or general comparison, and the pluperfect subjunctive for something that would have happened earlier.

• Habla como si lo supiera todo. (He talks as if he knew everything.) - but he doesn't.
• Gasta dinero como si fuera millonario. (He spends money as if he were a millionaire.)
• Me miró como si hubiera visto un fantasma. (She looked at me as if she had seen a ghost.)

Present indicative after como si is one of the clearest errors a learner can make. The comparison is imaginary by definition, so the mood is fixed. There is no "real" version to choose, unlike the doubt or aunque forks elsewhere in the system.

Ni que: the sarcasm marker

Close cousin to como si is ni que, a purely spoken flourish that means something like "anyone would think..." or a scornful "as if!". It also always takes the imperfect subjunctive.

• ¡Ni que fueras rico! (Anyone would think you were rich!) - said to someone spending freely.
• ¡Ni que fuera el jefe! (Anyone would think he was the boss!)
• ¡Ni que tuviéramos todo el día! (As if we had all day!)

The tone is always a little exasperated. You are mocking a pretension by pretending to accept it, and the imperfect subjunctive carries the "if only that were true" flavour.

Quién + subjunctive: the sighed wish

A bare quién in front of the imperfect subjunctive is a wistful "if only I could". There is no real question here, only a sigh.

• ¡Quién pudiera! (If only I could!)
• ¡Quién tuviera veinte años otra vez! (Oh to be twenty again!)
• ¡Quién supiera pintar así! (If only I could paint like that!)

It is idiomatic and slightly literary, but common in speech. Read quién plus the imperfect subjunctive as an unreachable wish about yourself, not a question about who does something.

The good wishes: que tengas un buen día

The warmest family is a bare que plus the present subjunctive, used for good wishes and polite send-offs. The subjunctive is a leftover: the full sentence is espero que... or quiero que... (I hope that...), and Spanish simply drops the espero or quiero, leaving the wish to stand on its own.

• Que tengas un buen día. (Have a good day.)
• Que te mejores. (Get well soon.)
• Que aproveche. (Enjoy your meal.)
• Que descanses. (Sleep well.)
• Que te vaya bien. (May it go well for you.)
• Que tengas suerte. (Good luck.)
• Que lo pases bien. (Have a good time.)

Whenever a sentence opens with a lone que and a wish, hear the hidden espero que behind it. That is why the verb is subjunctive even though there seems to be no trigger in sight.

Que yo sepa and por si

Two smaller fossils are worth pocketing. Que yo sepa (as far as I know), and its plural que sepamos, is a fixed hedge that always uses the subjunctive of saber.

• Que yo sepa, no ha llegado. (As far as I know, he hasn't arrived.)
• No viene nadie más, que yo sepa. (No one else is coming, as far as I know.)

The phrase el hecho de que (the fact that) usually takes the subjunctive even though it names a fact, because it frames the fact as something reacted to rather than freshly asserted: el hecho de que lo sepa no cambia nada (the fact that he knows changes nothing).

Finally, por si and por si acaso (just in case) lean towards the indicative in everyday speech - llévate el paraguas por si llueve (take the umbrella in case it rains) - though the subjunctive por si lloviera appears in more careful or past-tense contexts. Unlike en caso de que, which is hardwired to the subjunctive, por si does not force the mood, so treat it as its own small exception.

Common mistakes English speakers make

Using the indicative after como si. English "as if" is followed by an ordinary tense, and learners copy it: como si sabe is wrong. It must be como si supiera - the comparison is imaginary, so the imperfect subjunctive is fixed.

Doubling only one half of the concessive. Pase lo que pasa breaks the frame; both verbs are subjunctive, so it is pase lo que pase. The reduplication is the whole point.

Reading que tengas as a question or a command. The bare que is not "that" and not an order; it is the tail of a hidden espero que. It stays subjunctive because a wish, however abbreviated, still governs it.

Mixing up ojalá venga and ojalá viniera. The present subjunctive keeps the hope alive; the imperfect makes it wistful or unreal. Pick the tense to match how likely the outcome really is.

Forcing the subjunctive after por si. Unlike its cousin en caso de que, por si happily takes the indicative in speech: por si llueve, not only por si lloviera. Do not over-apply the rule.

Store these as chunks, not as rules. The subjunctive inside them is a fossil - a wish or a hypothesis that has hardened into a phrase - and once the shape is in your ear, pase lo que pase and que tengas un buen día come out whole, without a single deduction.

See also

• The subjunctive after wishes - the live version of the hope that ojalá and que tengas have fossilised.
• The subjunctive after doubt and denial - where the vouch-for-it logic behind como si and ni que is laid out in full.
• The subjunctive in adverbial clauses - en caso de que and the conjunctions that por si sits alongside.
• Si clauses: real and unreal conditions - the imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive that como si, ni que and quién all borrow.
• The Spanish grammar cheatsheet has the pase-lo-que-pase family and the good wishes on one card.