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Es recomendable que el estudiante sea educado.

Es recomendable que el estudiante sea educado.
It is advisable that the student be polite.
From Lesson 248:Irregular present subjunctive (sea, vaya, sepa)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Es recomendable que el estudiante sea educado.

Why do we use sea instead of es in this sentence?
Sea is the present subjunctive form of ser (to be). We use the subjunctive here because the sentence starts with Es recomendable que (It is advisable that). Impersonal expressions giving recommendations, opinions, or advice require the subjunctive in the following clause. Ser is fully irregular in this tense.
Why use ser (sea) here instead of estar (esté)? Isn't acting polite a temporary behavior?
In Spanish, being polite (educado) is treated as an inherent part of someone's character or upbringing, rather than a temporary mood or state. Therefore, it always pairs with ser.
Does educado mean 'educated' in the academic sense?
No, educado is a classic 'false friend.' It actually means 'polite' or 'well-mannered.' If you want to describe someone as highly educated in an academic sense, you would use words like culto or bien formado.
If we were talking about a female student, which words would change?
The sentence would become: Es recomendable que la estudiante sea educada. The noun estudiante is the same for both genders, so we just change the article to la and the adjective to educada to match.

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