Breakdown of Él no pensaba que el oro existiera.
él
he / him (after a preposition)
no
no / not
pensar
to think
que
that (relative pronoun, conjunction)
existir
to exist
el oro
the gold
Questions & Answers about Él no pensaba que el oro existiera.
Why is existiera in the subjunctive rather than the indicative?
The main clause uses no pensaba (he didn't think). Verbs of thought and belief like pensar take the indicative when they are affirmative because they declare a fact or a strong belief. However, when they are made negative with no, they introduce doubt or a denial of reality, which triggers the subjunctive.
Why do we use the imperfect subjunctive (existiera) here instead of the present subjunctive (exista)?
This is because of tense agreement. The action in the main clause happened in the past (pensaba). To keep the timeframes matched, the subjunctive verb in the second part of the sentence must also be in a past tense, which is why we use the imperfect subjunctive.
How is the form existiera built from the verb existir?
To form the imperfect subjunctive, you always start with the they form of the simple past tense. For existir, that is existieron. You drop the -ron ending to get the stem existie-, and then add the new ending. Since el oro is a singular subject, we add -ra to make existiera.
Could I say existiese instead of existiera here?
Yes, absolutely. The imperfect subjunctive has two completely interchangeable sets of endings: the -ra forms and the -se forms. Existiera and existiese mean the exact same thing, though the -ra endings tend to be more common in spoken Spanish.
Learn Él no pensaba que el oro existiera and more in Spanish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free