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Tan pronto como llegues, descongelaremos las sobras.

Tan pronto como llegues, descongelaremos las sobras.
As soon as you arrive, we will defrost the leftovers.
From Lesson 340:As soon as (en cuanto, apenas, tan pronto como)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Tan pronto como llegues, descongelaremos las sobras.

Why do we use the subjunctive llegues here instead of the normal present tense llegas?
Because the sentence is talking about an anticipated future event. When time conjunctions like tan pronto como (as soon as) introduce an action that hasn't happened yet, they trigger the present subjunctive (llegues). The arrival is pending, so the subjunctive is required.
Can tan pronto como ever be followed by the indicative?
Yes! If you are talking about a habitual action or a completed past event, you use the indicative. For example, Tan pronto como llegas, comemos means "As soon as you arrive (habitually), we eat." However, since our main clause here uses the future tense (descongelaremos), the arrival is clearly in the future, requiring the subjunctive.
Could I use apenas or en cuanto in this sentence instead?
Absolutely. Apenas llegues and En cuanto llegues mean exactly the same thing as Tan pronto como llegues. All three are temporal phrases of immediate sequence, and they all follow the exact same rule: use the subjunctive for future events.
Can I flip the order of the clauses?
Yes, you can say Descongelaremos las sobras tan pronto como llegues. The grammar rules remain exactly the same, but notice that you drop the comma when the time phrase (tan pronto como) is moved to the middle of the sentence.
Is the word for "leftovers" (las sobras) always plural?
When referring to leftover food from a meal, yes, it is almost always used in the plural as las sobras, much like the English word "leftovers." The singular noun la sobra exists, but it generally refers to an abstract "excess" or "surplus" of something, rather than food in the fridge.

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