Breakdown of Me gustaría que esa empresa patrocinara el evento.
esa
that (feminine)
el evento
the event
que
that / than
me
to me / me (direct object)
gustar
to like
la empresa
company
patrocinar
to sponsor
Questions & Answers about Me gustaría que esa empresa patrocinara el evento.
Why does this sentence use the imperfect subjunctive (patrocinara)?
Because the main verb expressing the wish, gustaría, is in the conditional tense. When you use the conditional to express a desire about someone or something else doing an action, the following verb after que must be in the imperfect subjunctive.
English uses the infinitive "to sponsor" here. Why doesn't Spanish just use "patrocinar"?
In Spanish, you can only use the infinitive if the person having the desire and the person doing the action are the same (like me gustaría patrocinar, meaning I would like to sponsor myself). Because "I" have the desire but "that company" is doing the sponsoring, you must use que plus the subjunctive.
Could I say patrocinase instead of patrocinara?
Yes. The imperfect subjunctive has two interchangeable sets of endings: the -ra forms and the -se forms. They mean exactly the same thing, but the -ra forms are much more common in everyday Latin American Spanish.
How do I know how to build the form patrocinara?
The trick to forming the imperfect subjunctive is to start with the "they" form of the past preterite tense. For patrocinar, that is patrocinaron. Drop the -ron at the end, and add the imperfect subjunctive endings. For esa empresa, you add -ra.
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