I’ll start with a short story to illustrate the great importance of what may seem like a subtle grammatical point. A couple of months ago I was in the emergency department to admit a patient to my service when I heard a commotion – a lot of upset people – in the room adjacent to where I was sitting. There was a Guatemalan family with there daughter, who was the patient. What I got my attention was that the emergency room resident was explaining something to them through an interpreter, and it was obviously pretty bad news, as they were crying and almost screaming, especially the lady who I assumed was the mother. After finishing the explanation, the resident and the medical student with her left the room, and moving closer to where I was, began to discuss the case, specifically that they didn’t understand the reaction of the parents to what the resident had just told them. Curious (and also because I suspected that if the girl was to be admitted to the hospital that it would be me that ended up admitting her) I leaned over and asked what was going on. The resident told me that the girl had been brought to the E.R. by her parents for flu-like symptoms. She suspected that that was exactly what it was, but just in case had drawn blood to do a few tests, including a complete blood count. She said that the blood tests had come back “all screwed up,” that the results looked obviously erroneous, which happens not too infrequently as the result of one error or another. (When that happens, you just draw more blood and repeat the tests, and they usually come back just fine.) In any case, the resident told me that they had just been explaining that to the family, and weren’t quite sure why the family had reacted with such grief and anguish. Nobody likes to get their blood drawn once, much less twice in the same day, but this reaction was over the top. Now I was even more curious, because the mother and the patient were really continuing to become more and more hysterical. In fact, I now began to suspect that because of the language disparity that there might have been some misunderstanding. So, I ask the resident exactly what she had said to the family, and she recounted that she’d simply explained that the blood count had come back with an extremely number of white blood cells, which – where the results to be believed – could indicate something as serious as leukemia. However, she’d told them, it’s likely an error, which would be confirmed be repetition of the tests. I decided to take matters into my own hands now, and went in to talk to the family. My suspicions were confirmed. The interpreter was not a native speaker, nor even what I would consider proficient, and when the doctor had explained that the test results could be suggestive of leukemia, but that she suspected and hoped there’d been an error, the interpreter’s interpretation was “….ojalá que hubiera un error…”
If the reason for the miscommunication (i.e. the difference in what the doctor said and how it was actually interpreted) is obvious to you, then you probably don’t need to read any further. What the doctor had said was “we hope there’s been an error”: implying that the possibility exists. However, what the interpreter said was something like “it’s too bad that there was not an error”. What the interpreter should have said was “Ojalá que haya un error”. The proper use of the subjunctive makes all the difference, so let’s talk about it.
First, remember that the word ojalá is used to express hope or desire for whatever follows it in the sentence. Since it is dealing with things like “hope or desire,” what follows the word ojalá must always be in the subjunctive mood (since by definition if you are hoping, desiring, or wishing, then whatever you are hoping, desiring, or wishing for has not yet happened (and in fact may never happen)). The two most common forms of the subjunctive that you encounter in speech and writing are the present subjunctive and the past imperfect subjunctive. Using the verb venir, the 1st person plural conjugation in the present subjunctive would be ….que nosotros vengamos, while in the past imperfect subjunctive would be …que nosotros vinieramos, or …que nosotros viniesemos. Usually the choice of which form to use – present or past imperfect – is ridiculously simple. If what you are talking about is in the present time, you use the present tense. I hope I have five dollars = Espero que tenga cinco dólares. If I am talking about how Thursday of last week I was hoping I had five dollars, then I would say, “El jueves de la semana pasada esperaba que tuviera cinco dólares.”
However, that’s not the case when you’re talking about a subjunctive phrase preceded by ojalá. In this case, time -- present or past – has nothing to do with it. Let’s analyze and compare the phrase “Ojalá que tenga cinco dólares” with the similar but very different phrase, “Ojaláque tuviera cinco dólares.” The difference is this: in the first example (Ojalá que tenga cinco dólares), I’ve decided that I need $5 for something, but I haven’t yet opened my wallet to see if I’ve got it. In other words, I hope (but I don’t know…) I have $5. Maybe I have it, maybe I don’t….let me check. Ojalá que tenga cinco dólares. Ojalá que al sacar mi billetera haya $5 adentro. No sé. Voy a ver.
Well, as luck would have it, I open up my wallet…and nothing. No five dollars. Estoy misio. Now, what I want to say is this: I wish I had $5, but I know for a fact I don’t. I say, “Ojalá que tuviera cinco dólares.”
So you see, after Ojalá, whether the verb is in the present or past subjunctive has nothing to do with time. If you you are hoping and there is hope = present subjunctive. If you are wishing, but you know for a fact it ain’t gonna happen = past perfect subjunctive. So going back to my story about the family in the E.R., when the interpreter said “ojalá que hubiera un error”, the family understood that it was a done deal, it was confirmed, there was no error, the results were valid, the child had something bad like leukemia. Had the interpreter said “ojalá que haya un error”, then the family would have understood something completely different: Hopefully there’s an error (we don’t know yet)…”
Let’s look at a few examples.
Remember the Juan Luis Guerra song, “Ojalá que llueva café en el campo…” = Hopefully it’ll rain coffee in the country…
Ojalá que pueda ir a tu fiesta. I hope I can go to your party (I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible).
Ojalá que pudiera ir a tu fiesta. I wish I could go to your party (but I can’t).
