Breakdown of Sería excelente que recaudáramos más dólares.
ser
to be
el dólar
dollar
excelente
excellent
que
that / than
más
more
recaudar
to raise (funds, money)
Questions & Answers about Sería excelente que recaudáramos más dólares.
Why do we use the imperfect subjunctive verb recaudáramos here instead of the present subjunctive?
The main verb, sería (would be), is in the conditional tense. When an expression of emotion or opinion like sería excelente que (it would be excellent that/if) is in the conditional or past tense, the verb that follows must be in the imperfect (past) subjunctive.
The English translation says "if we raised", but the Spanish sentence uses que. Shouldn't it be si?
In English, it feels natural to say "It would be excellent if...". However, Spanish treats sería excelente as an impersonal expression that states an opinion ("It would be excellent that..."). These expressions are followed by que, not si (if), to introduce the subjunctive clause.
Why is there an accent mark on the "a" in recaudáramos?
In the imperfect subjunctive, the nosotros form always has a spoken stress on the vowel immediately before the -ramos or -semos ending. Because this places the stress on the third-to-last syllable, Spanish spelling rules require a written accent mark to show that pronunciation.
I've also seen words ending in "-semos" for this tense. Could we use recaudásemos?
Yes, the imperfect subjunctive has two interchangeable sets of endings: the -ra endings and the -se endings. Recaudásemos is perfectly correct and means exactly the same thing. However, in Latin America, the -ra endings (like recaudáramos) are much more common in everyday speech.
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