Learn Spanish (Spain): Queremos que cierren las persianas todos los días. - We want them to close the blinds every day.

Queremos que cierren las persianas todos los días.

We want them to close the blinds every day.

Breakdown of Queremos que cierren las persianas todos los días.

querer

to want; to love (a person)

que

that (relative pronoun, conjunction)

Questions & Answers about Queremos que cierren las persianas todos los días.

Why is cierren in the subjunctive here instead of the normal present tense cierran?

Because the first verb, Queremos (we want), expresses a desire. In Spanish, when you express a wish for someone else to do something, you use que plus the subjunctive for the second verb.

Why does cierren have an "ie" in the middle?

The infinitive is cerrar (to close). It is a stem-changing verb where the "e" becomes "ie". In the present subjunctive, -ar and -er verbs keep the exact same stem changes as they do in the normal present tense. Since this is the "they" form, the stem changes to cierr- and we add the subjunctive ending -en.

If cerrar and querer are both stem-changing verbs, why doesn't Queremos have an "ie" too?

Because stem changes for -ar and -er verbs only happen in the singular forms and the "they" form. The nosotros (we) and vosotros (you all) forms never take this stem change in the present tense or the present subjunctive, so we use the regular stem quer- to make queremos.

Are las persianas the same thing as curtains?

Not quite! Las persianas specifically refers to blinds or shutters, like the heavy roller blinds very commonly found outside windows in Spain. If you want to say "curtains" (the fabric ones inside the house), you would use the word las cortinas.