Subjunctivity

When I first arrived in Paris, it was to fulfill a job offer working in non-fiction video distribution. That job did not work out, (they dumped me), and as many expats do, I fell into teaching English as a second language. It's a hard road to follow. Low pay, unreliable hours, intense work that sucks up all your energy. After a couple of years, I simply became tired of being a zombie – and a low paid zombie to boot. Which is why I am now writing about life in Paris and training French executives in communication skills (what do you do once you know English, but have to actually work with it?). I suppose it must have been some sense of desperation that convinced me to join TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), an international non-profit association. It's supposed to help us (no – them!) grow professionally and to distribute information about English teaching and research.

I must admit that occasionally, they do come up with interesting workshops. Last Saturday was one of them. They had a fantastic speaker on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), a method that teaches the theory and practice of communications – not English per se. And the most important thing was – it was free for members! A done deal for me.

As is often the case, I got the biggest "flash" during lunch in a local restaurant. I ended up eating with three other trainers, one of whom was French and who teaches English within the French university system (actually, I do too now – but it's only to get my foot in the door and teach French-American Intercultural Communication next October!). She spoke about grammar. (Sorry, but please keep reading). She reminded me that in French, you use the subjunctive tense quite a bit. Without boring you about the details from the grammar books, the most pertinent description says:

"The subjunctive is the name of a special group of verb forms which are used in a few cases to talk about events which are not certain to happen." * It goes on to say that "The subjunctive is not very common in modern British English…" (or American I might add). As a matter of fact, out of four English grammar books that I have hoarded from the old days, only two mentioned it at all. And only one in depth.

So what does this all mean? The other trainer continued: In languages such as English where you don't have the subjunctive tense, the tendency is to believe that you're either right or wrong, good or bad – that there's a basic conflict between two extremes. One is light and good, and the other is dark and evil. Latin languages such as French, Italian and Spanish, which all have the subjunctive tense, see the world as more good and bad mixed together.

Have you seen the movie Spiderman Three? I think she's right.

Vive subjunctivity!


*Practical English Usage by Michael Swan