Breakdown of Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas, quizá habría corregido algunos defectos.
Questions & Answers about Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas, quizá habría corregido algunos defectos.
Hubiera escuchado is the past (pluperfect) subjunctive, used in Spanish for unreal or contrary-to-fact situations in the past.
- Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas…
= If the government had listened to those criticisms (but it didn’t)…
If you used escuchó or había escuchado (indicative), it would sound like you’re talking about a real, factual past event, not a hypothetical one:
Si el gobierno escuchó esas críticas…
= If the government listened to those criticisms… (we don’t know if it did or not, just a condition)Si el gobierno había escuchado esas críticas…
= If the government had listened to those criticisms… (also factual/unknown, not clearly contrary to reality)
The pattern here is the standard “unreal past condition”:
- Si
- past subjunctive perfect (hubiera / hubiese escuchado)
- …
- conditional perfect (habría corregido)
This is the Spanish equivalent of English If X *had done, Y would have done*.
No, in standard Spanish that’s considered incorrect.
In contrary-to-fact conditionals about the past, you cannot put the conditional in the si-clause. The correct structure is:
- Si
- hubiera / hubiese
- participle
- hubiera / hubiese
- habría
- participle in the result clause
So:
- ✅ Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas, quizá habría corregido algunos defectos.
- ❌ Si el gobierno habría escuchado esas críticas, quizá hubiera corregido algunos defectos.
You might hear si habría in some colloquial speech, but it is usually marked as nonstandard or incorrect in formal usage.
Yes, you can say si el gobierno hubiese escuchado esas críticas; it means the same thing.
- hubiera escuchado and hubiese escuchado are just two forms of the same tense and mood (past subjunctive perfect).
- In Latin America, hubiera is more common in everyday speech.
- hubiese may sound a bit more formal or literary, but both are correct and interchangeable in this sentence.
So you can safely treat them as stylistic variants, not different meanings.
Quizá (or quizás) can be followed by either indicative or subjunctive. It depends on what the speaker wants to express:
- quizá
- indicative: more certainty, or just a guess about something seen as fairly likely or as a “normal statement”.
- quizá
- subjunctive: more doubt, speculation, or subjectivity.
In this sentence, quizá is modifying the whole hypothetical result clause:
- quizá habría corregido algunos defectos
= maybe it would have corrected some defects
We already need habría corregido (conditional perfect) to match the si hubiera… structure. That conditional perfect is an indicative tense, and that’s fine after quizá.
So:
- Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas, quizá habría corregido algunos defectos.
(If the government had listened, maybe it would have corrected…)
You’re expressing a hypothetical consequence that you’re not completely sure about. That’s exactly the job of quizá here.
Yes, you can move quizá around, and the meaning basically stays the same. All of these are natural:
- Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas, quizá habría corregido algunos defectos.
- Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas, habría corregido quizá algunos defectos. (slight emphasis on “some defects, maybe”)
- Quizá el gobierno habría corregido algunos defectos si hubiera escuchado esas críticas.
The most neutral and common options are:
- at the start of the result clause: …, quizá habría corregido…
- at the very beginning of the sentence: Quizá el gobierno habría corregido… si…
Position mostly affects emphasis, not grammar.
Both are possible, but they don’t feel exactly the same.
- esas críticas = those criticisms (more deictic, pointing to a specific set of criticisms that are separate from the speaker or located in a specific context: the ones we were talking about, the ones from that group, at that time, etc.)
- las críticas = the criticisms (more generic/definite; the criticisms in general, or the ones that are already clearly defined in the discourse)
In context:
- Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas…
suggests: If the government had listened to those particular criticisms (the ones we have in mind)…
Using esas helps pick out a specific, previously mentioned or known set of criticisms, not criticism in general.
You might see both in real usage, but in standard Spanish:
- With escuchar, the more typical structure is escuchar algo (direct object, no a).
- escuchar música, escuchar las noticias, escuchar esas críticas
The preposition a is obligatory with oír or escuchar when the object is a person (a direct object that is a person or personified):
- escuchar a los ciudadanos, escuchar a su madre
With esas críticas, which are not people, the most standard is:
- ✅ escuchar esas críticas
- ❌ escuchar a esas críticas (not standard; some people might say it, but it’s better to avoid)
In Spanish, gobierno is a masculine singular noun:
- el gobierno = the government
So:
- ✅ el gobierno (correct)
- ❌ la gobierno (wrong gender)
- los gobiernos would be plural: the governments (more than one government)
Also, in Spanish it’s almost always used with an article in this kind of sentence:
- ✅ Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado…
- ❌ Si gobierno hubiera escuchado… (sounds incomplete/wrong)
The singular form is very natural, because we’re usually thinking about “the government” as a unit (like “it” in English), even though it’s made up of many people.
You could say algunos errores, but it doesn’t sound exactly the same.
- defectos: “flaws, defects, shortcomings.” It sounds a bit broader, more like structural or inherent problems, not just isolated mistakes.
- errores: “errors, mistakes.” This tends to suggest more discrete, identifiable mistakes.
In a political/government context:
- corregir algunos defectos
suggests fixing structural issues, weaknesses, shortcomings in policies or systems. - corregir algunos errores
suggests fixing specific mistakes that were made.
Both are grammatically correct; defectos gives a slightly more general and maybe more abstract feel.
The comma marks the boundary between the if-clause (condition) and the result clause:
- Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas,
quizá habría corregido algunos defectos.
That’s the standard punctuation when the si-clause comes first.
If you reverse the order, you normally omit the comma:
- Quizá habría corregido algunos defectos si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas.
So:
- [Si-clause first] → use a comma.
- [Result clause first] → usually no comma in the middle.
Yes, they refer to different time frames and types of hypotheticals.
Si el gobierno hubiera escuchado esas críticas, quizá habría corregido algunos defectos.
- Time: a past situation that didn’t happen.
- Meaning: If the government *had listened (in the past), maybe it would have corrected some defects (in the past).*
Si el gobierno escuchara esas críticas, quizá corregiría algunos defectos.
- Time: a present or future unreal situation (it isn’t listening now / probably won’t).
- Meaning: If the government *listened to those criticisms (now or in general), maybe it would correct some defects (now or in the future).*
Formally:
- hubiera escuchado / habría corregido → past unreal conditional.
- escuchara / corregiría → present/future unreal conditional.