please can somebody explain to me...

[kitbit]

...the subjunctive "tense"?

I'm trying to understand it in spanish, but if I knew how it is used in english and what the translation might therefore be I think I might stand a better chance!

??

do these help ?

here

and

here

Yes actually they do, thanks!
But is there also an english translation or equivalent do you know?

whats difficult is that it is not often used in English, we tend to use the conditional form of the verb OR just switch the sentence around for example

"Mama dice que hagas la comida"
we would say "Mummy wants you to make lunch"
rather than Mummy says that you should make lunch"

there is a subjunctive in English - but don't ask me to explain - I don't think I ever really did grammar in English !

Also - tenses with the same names don't work the same way in all languages - so maybe just better to make sense of what it means in Spanish and not worry about what it would be called in English.

another example
Ojala que ...
direct translation would that i were
but we would simply say I wish that

its a bit like the use of the reflective in spanish when we would use the passive

me llamo witchandchips
english i'm called witchandchips rather than i call myself witchandchips

Hmm, I think I am beginning to get it, someone once explained its usage to me as "you just DO", I think I see why!

I'm off to confuse myself with the spanish version again now, thanks you two! x

It's not really a tense, it's a "mood".

It doesn't really exist in English very often, one common example is "If I were you" (rather than the indicative mood (ie what is normally said, "if I was you")

Other examples - "John requested Jill be invited" (rather than "is invited") or "John suggested Jill apply for the job" (rather than "applies")

It's used for suggestions, situations that aren't happening but COULD happen.

In some languages, use of the subjunctive is essential. In English, you can get away without it and still sound grammatically correct. Unless you're talking to a pedant...

That helps a lot too, thanks branflake, it makes sense of the spanish explanations too which aren't very clear as they are using spanish examples, and trying to explain a concept while using the concept iyswim is a bit confusing!