subjunctive mood of to be

subjunctive
The subjunctive is a set of forms of a verb which express states that do not exist. There are two sorts of subjunctive in English: the present subjunctive and the past subjunctive. In form, the present subjunctive is the same as the infinitive, so the present subjunctive of to be is: I be, you be, he/she/it be, we be, they be. There is no s on the end of the third person singular: he go; she leave; it have.

The present subjunctive has three uses in modern English. First, it follows verbs, nouns or adjectives that express the idea of command, suggestion or possibility: I suggested that he leave; It is my recommendation that she not be appointed; It is fitting that she resign.

This use of the present subjunctive is common in American English. In British English it is more usual to use should: I suggested that he should leave, but it seems that the present subjunctive may be on the increase.

Second, it is used in formal English in clauses beginning with words such as if; although; whether and lest: If that be the case, there is little more we can do; Tie her up securely, lest she escape.

This use of the present subjunctive tends to sound stilted and old-fashioned, and in everyday speech and writing the indicative is usually used instead: If that is the case..., but again American English uses it more readily than British English.

Third, it is used in certain fixed phrases, such as far be it from me; be that as it may; God save the Queen; come what may; suffice it to say; heaven forbid; perish the thought.

The past subjunctive effectively relates only to the verb to be, where it takes the form were. It is used to express hypothetical states, and comes after the verbs wish and suppose, conjunctions such as if; if only; as; though; whether, and the phrases would rather and would that: I wish she were here; If I were you, I'd resign; Would that he were still alive.

It is widely used in everyday English, but in non-formal contexts it is often replaced by was in the first and third person singular: I wish she was here. In formal or literary English, the order of if-clauses can be reversed and the if omitted: Were I you, I'd resign.


© From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
Helicon Publishing LTD 2007.
All rights reserved.

The execises on this webside might be some help.

Additionally:

Quote:

subjunctive
The subjunctive is a set of forms of a verb which express states that do not exist. There are two sorts of subjunctive in English: the present subjunctive and the past subjunctive. In form, the present subjunctive is the same as the infinitive, so the present subjunctive of to be is: I be, you be, he/she/it be, we be, they be. There is no s on the end of the third person singular: he go; she leave; it have.

The present subjunctive has three uses in modern English. First, it follows verbs, nouns or adjectives that express the idea of command, suggestion or possibility: I suggested that he leave; It is my recommendation that she not be appointed; It is fitting that she resign.

This use of the present subjunctive is common in American English. In British English it is more usual to use should: I suggested that he should leave, but it seems that the present subjunctive may be on the increase.

Second, it is used in formal English in clauses beginning with words such as if; although; whether and lest: If that be the case, there is little more we can do; Tie her up securely, lest she escape.

This use of the present subjunctive tends to sound stilted and old-fashioned, and in everyday speech and writing the indicative is usually used instead: If that is the case..., but again American English uses it more readily than British English.

Third, it is used in certain fixed phrases, such as far be it from me; be that as it may; God save the Queen; come what may; suffice it to say; heaven forbid; perish the thought.

The past subjunctive effectively relates only to the verb to be, where it takes the form were. It is used to express hypothetical states, and comes after the verbs wish and suppose, conjunctions such as if; if only; as; though; whether, and the phrases would rather and would that: I wish she were here; If I were you, I'd resign; Would that he were still alive.

It is widely used in everyday English, but in non-formal contexts it is often replaced by was in the first and third person singular: I wish she was here. In formal or literary English, the order of if-clauses can be reversed and the if omitted: Were I you, I'd resign.


© From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
Helicon Publishing LTD 2007.
All rights reserved.

source

I suggest that you google "subjunctive in German"

It's very complicated to explain . . .




I can easily find the conjugation of zu sein in what I take as being all of the possible tenses for the indicative and subjunctive moods, but none of the sources I have found give complete English equivalents.
























XXXXXXXbvmi SUGG

Try verbix.com

http://verbix.com/languages/english.shtml

It's a great website--when it's working.

I couldn't get it to work as I was writing this.

But I found this on wikipedia

Present subjunctive
The form is always identical to the infinitive. This means that, apart from the verb "to be", it is distinct only in the third person singular and the obsolete second person singular.

Indicative: I write, thou writest, he writes, I am
Subjunctive: I write, thou write, he write, I be
Used to refer to situations which are or may be contrary to fact in the present or future; the infactuality is rarely explicit:

I insist that he come at once. (present time; fact that the action is not currently occurring is implicit)
I insist that he come when I call. (future time; fact that the action may or may not occur is implicit)
(The present subjunctive is often interchangeable with the past subjunctive like so: I insist that he must come at once.)


Imperfect subjunctive
The use of the old term "imperfect" shows that this form is so rare that it has not been integrated into the modern system of English tense classification. The imperfect subjunctive is identical to the past simple in every verb except the verb "to be". With this verb, there is an option, but no longer a necessity, of using were throughout ALL forms (i.e., I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener, vs. I wish I was a girl).

Indicative: I was
Subjunctive: traditionally I were but now more commonly I was.
If I were rich, I would retire to the South of France.

Walter Hinteler wrote:

The execises on this webside might be some help.

Additionally:

Quote:

subjunctive
The subjunctive is a set of forms of a verb which express states that do not exist. There are two sorts of subjunctive in English: the present subjunctive and the past subjunctive. In form, the present subjunctive is the same as the infinitive, so the present subjunctive of to be is: I be, you be, he/she/it be, we be, they be. There is no s on the end of the third person singular: he go; she leave; it have.

The present subjunctive has three uses in modern English. First, it follows verbs, nouns or adjectives that express the idea of command, suggestion or possibility: I suggested that he leave; It is my recommendation that she not be appointed; It is fitting that she resign.

This use of the present subjunctive is common in American English. In British English it is more usual to use should: I suggested that he should leave, but it seems that the present subjunctive may be on the increase.

Second, it is used in formal English in clauses beginning with words such as if; although; whether and lest: If that be the case, there is little more we can do; Tie her up securely, lest she escape.

This use of the present subjunctive tends to sound stilted and old-fashioned, and in everyday speech and writing the indicative is usually used instead: If that is the case..., but again American English uses it more readily than British English.

Third, it is used in certain fixed phrases, such as far be it from me; be that as it may; God save the Queen; come what may; suffice it to say; heaven forbid; perish the thought.

The past subjunctive effectively relates only to the verb to be, where it takes the form were. It is used to express hypothetical states, and comes after the verbs wish and suppose, conjunctions such as if; if only; as; though; whether, and the phrases would rather and would that: I wish she were here; If I were you, I'd resign; Would that he were still alive.

It is widely used in everyday English, but in non-formal contexts it is often replaced by was in the first and third person singular: I wish she was here. In formal or literary English, the order of if-clauses can be reversed and the if omitted: Were I you, I'd resign.


© From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
Helicon Publishing LTD 2007.
All rights reserved.

source

Besides that I think that German subjunctive moods are usually expressed in English translations by modal auxiliary verbs, such as can, must, may ...

"would be"

There really isn't much grammar in English.

gungasnake wrote:

"would be"

There really isn't much grammar in English.

That's cute, Gunga.

There is as much grammar in English as there is in every other language on the face of the planet.

Basically the subjunctive is moribund, and fast approaching death in English. Walter's article pretty much covered it.

It matters not at all though for we have all the needed grammatical collocations to say the same things that other languages say with their subjunctive forms. We had 'em at one time; we just turfed them.

JTT wrote:

gungasnake wrote:

"would be"

There really isn't much grammar in English.

That's cute, Gunga.

There is as much grammar in English as there is in every other language on the face of the planet.

Something that the Germans have never realized: You cannot take over the world with a language that is overly complicated. English is a much purified language. English doesn't have as much grammar as some other languages do, especially the sister language of German. This is why it is so difficult to translate something into English. Because of our shortage of grammar English has a subtlety that other languages lack. If German is a ballpoint pen, English is felt-tip marker. With the possible exceptions of William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill, I doubt that any native speaker could truly master English in an entire lifetime.

flaja wrote:

That is an illusion, Flaja, pure illusion. You think that the grammar of English is simple or "purified" because you daily deploy it so easily. The grammar of English is no less complicated than the grammar of any other language.

Having studied German for 5 years, I must disagree.

German has 3 genders and nouns don't always have their natural gender (Das Maedchen is a neuter noun but it means "young girl or maiden" while a male cat is die Katze, a feminine noun; a young girl is it, but a boy cat is she). English has 3 genders and humans and animals have their natural gender while everything else is neuter, it).

German has 4 grammatical cases where English has only 2. Each grammatical case in German has its own definite articles and pronouns and these vary by gender. English has one definite article for all genders and cases.

German adjectives have endings for each gender in each of the 4 grammatical cases. English has no such endings.

German has singular and plural forms for the pronoun "you" and then each of these has a formal and familiar form as well, but English hasn't had separate singular/plural or formal/informal forms of you for over 600 years.

In his book, The Adventure of English Melvyn Bragg explained that in Saxon times English had word endings based on gender and case, and then when so many Danish invaders settled in Yorkshire their language was the same way. Since both Saxon and Danish came from the same source the stem words for each were usually the same, but the endings were different. In places where Danish communities were next to Saxon communities the two groups learned to communicate with each other by dropping the endings. And then when the two groups tried to communicate with their other neighbors the word endings were dropped again until all of England had dispensed with the endings. Thus English was simplified and is now far less complicated than it had been and far less burdened with grammar than a language like German is.

Quote:

These complications that adults see in other languages are not at all complications to children. They learn these intricacies with aplomb, while adult learners stumble and fumble their way thru a new language.

In grade school I was never formally taught much grammar. I was taught to identify what was grammatically correct based on how it sounded. I was merely copying my teachers rather than learning grammar. I learned as much about English grammar in my first 2 years of German class than I had in by previous 7 years of language arts and English class.

Quote:

Every speaker masters the structure of their language, usually by the age of five or six.

They master what is acceptable in their limited community of family and friends, not necessarily what is standard. If people were to master English grammar by the age of 6, John Wariner's junior high school English Grammar textbooks would have never been written.

Quote:

If English grammar was so simple then translations to English shouldn't be at all difficult; they should be a piece of cake.

It is difficult to translate German into English in that German has a much more limited vocabulary and a single word in German could possibly carry the meaning of several different English words that don't all have the exact shade of meaning. You may translate with one shade when the German meant another. But, in my experience it is far more difficult to translate English into German because German has so much more grammar to worry about. I often catch myself mentally translating English into German while trying to find a simpler way to make the translation so less grammar is involved.

Having studied German for 5 years, I must disagree.

German has 3 genders and nouns don't always have their natural gender (Das Maedchen is a neuter noun but it means "young girl or maiden" while a male cat is die Katze, a feminine noun; a young girl is it, but a boy cat is she). English has 3 genders and humans and animals have their natural gender while everything else is neuter, it).


etc etc

Certainly, a knowledge of Latin helps greatly.

German has 3 genders and nouns don't always have their natural gender.(Das Maedchen is a neuter noun but it means "young girl or maiden" while a male cat is die Katze, a feminine noun; a young girl is it, but a boy cat is she).

a male cat is called "der Kater").