El que asociemos los conceptos es un truco infalible.

Questions & Answers about El que asociemos los conceptos es un truco infalible.

Why do we use el que here instead of just que?
When a whole clause (like "that we associate the concepts") acts as the subject of a sentence, Spanish often puts el in front of que. It essentially turns the phrase into a noun, meaning "the fact that". You could technically just start the sentence with Que asociemos..., but El que asociemos... sounds much more natural and clearly signals that this entire idea is the subject.
Why is asociemos in the subjunctive?
When you use el que (the fact that) to introduce a subject clause, the verb that follows usually takes the subjunctive. This happens because "the fact that we associate" is being treated as an abstract concept or an idea that we are commenting on (the comment being that it is an infallible trick), rather than just declaring an objective event.
If the first verb is asociemos (we associate), why is the main verb es instead of somos?
The subject of the main verb es isn't "we". The subject is the entire noun clause el que asociemos los conceptos (the fact that we associate the concepts). Because a clause is treated as a single abstract thing ("it"), the main verb must be the third-person singular es.
Isn't asociemos also a command?
Yes, the form is identical! The first-person plural present subjunctive is also used for "let's" commands. If it stood alone, ¡Asociemos los conceptos! would mean "Let's associate the concepts!" But here, following el que, it is just the normal subjunctive mood meaning "that we associate".

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