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Indicative or subjunctive? In the question like "Do you want to talk when you have time?" which is the correct option: 1) ¿Quieres hablar cuando tienes tiempo? 2) ¿Quieres hablar cuando tengas tiempo? 3) sth else? I would be very thankful for explanations and further examples(!!!) similar to one given. I am trying to deal with subjunctive, and I understand some situations for its use, but I still have a lot of troubles with it.

Answers · 12

3
¿Quieres hablar cuando tengas tiempo?
2
If instead of "cuando" you put "mientras", both could be right. ¿Quieres hablar mientras tienes tiempo? You have time. Do you want to speak up? ¿Quieres hablar mientras tengas tiempo? You have little time, your time is about to finish. Do you want to speak?
2
Como los nativos ya te han dicho la segunda opción es la correcta. Pero si quieres usar el indicativo podrías decir ¿Quieres hablar si tienes tiempo? ¿Si tienes tiempo te apetece hablar un rato? Es sólo mi opinión y puede que me equivoque, a ver lo que dicen los nativos.
2
Sorry, but I disagree with Alex's answer. You'll never hear a spanish using the first option. Here you have a good explanation of using the subjunctive in subordinate clauses, I think: https://community.dur.ac.uk/m.p.thompson/subjunctive.htm The trick with the subjunctive is try to transform the sentence to put a "que" without change the meaning, although in this case it is a bit longer: ¿Quieres hablar cuando tengas tiempo? -> ¿Quieres hablar en el momento en que tengas tiempo? Hope this help.
2
Subjunctive is tricky. Both options are grammatically correct. Option 2 sounds a little better. People might disagree with me, but I think a good translation for option 2 would be 'do you want to talk whenever you have time?' instead of option 1- 'do you want to talk when you have time?'

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