Breakdown of Si hirvieras la leche, no tendríamos este problema.
no
no, not
tener
to have
el problema
the problem
la leche
milk
Questions & Answers about Si hirvieras la leche, no tendríamos este problema.
Why do we use hirvieras (imperfect subjunctive) here instead of the present tense?
This sentence is an "unreal" or hypothetical conditional. It describes a situation that isn't actually happening right now (you aren't boiling the milk). To express "If [hypothetical situation]...", Spanish uses si followed by the imperfect subjunctive (hirvieras). The result part of the sentence then uses the conditional tense (tendríamos).
The infinitive is hervir (to boil). Why does hirvieras start with "hirv-" instead of "herv-"?
The imperfect subjunctive is always built from the ellos/ellas form of the simple past (preterite) tense. For hervir, that past tense form is hirvieron, which has a stem change from "e" to "i". If you drop the -ron from hirvieron, you get the base hirvie-. Then, you just add the tú ending -ras to get hirvieras.
Why is the conditional verb tendríamos instead of "teneríamos"?
Problema ends in "-a". Why does the sentence use the masculine word instead of ?