Spanish Verb Mood - Lawless Spanish Grammar


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Modos de verbos

Verb mood is all about the ‘tude; that is, the speaker’s attitude about the verb, whether it’s a fact, an opinion, a command, or a possibility.

Spanish has six or seven moods, depending on how you look at it.

Grammatically speaking, impersonal means unrelated to a subject: there is only one form of the verb for all grammatical persons.

Infinitive	Infinitivo	Nominal verb form – the name of the verb as well as its noun form	ser	to be
Participle	Participio	Adjectival verb form	sido	was
Gerund	Gerundio	Adverbial verb form	siendo	being

Personal moods have a different conjugation for each grammatical person.

Conditional	Condicional	Condition or possibility	serías	you would be
Imperative	Imperativo	Command	sea	be
Indicative	Indicativo	Indication of a fact – this is the most common, "normal" mood*	eres	you are
Subjunctive	Subjuntivo	Subjectivity, doubt, or impossibility	que seas	that you be

Mood is about attitude, Tense is about time.

There are three Tenses: present, past, and future, so these tell you when something happens.
In comparison, Mood indicates how the speaker feels about what’s happening: is it a fact? a supposition? a command? a possibility?

Every verb form has Tense and Mood – they work together, as you can see in my Spanish verb timeline.

* Hint: when the mood is not stated explicitly, for example pretérito, it’s the indicative mood.

Think you’ve got it? Test yourself on the difference between Spanish verb moods:

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