Use your resources- Newspapers
Learning comes from all resources. The newspaper is a great resource for language learning and exposure to the language because it has a little bit of everything. As we know, there are different levels of journalism but this does not mean we will not see errors or questionable phrases from a grammatical perspective. However, I consider newspaper articles as a learning opportunity whether the grammar is correct or incorrect. It is just a reminder that certain aspects of language are regional and what is common in one area of the Spanish-speaking world maybe unheard of in another region or country.
I read this article because it caught my attention. It is an article about soccer (
fútbol) and the upcoming World Cup in 2018 has a few teams that are first time qualifiers or has countries that have not participated in the World Cup for a number of years. Peru is one of them. The national team will participate for the first time in decades and their star player, Paolo Guerrero is the talk of the town but for all the wrong reasons. He was recently suspended for using a banned substance which would mean no World Cup. However, he has managed to have the sanction reduced to six months which will allow him to play.
The author of this article is clearly not in favour of this athlete because ‘
es un dopado’, ‘un tramposo’ as the journalist states.
For those trying to learn and master the subjunctive, in addition to text book study, I recommend reading newspaper articles and every time you see the subjunctive used ask yourself if you understand the reason why from a grammatical perspective. If you are unclear, look up the grammar point in a text book or online. In this article, I came across a form that I never seen used before.
Clearly the subjunctive is required but the form made me stop and come back several times.
I looked it up and right on. The form used is regional but considered incorrect in most countries in the Spanish-speaking world according to some dialogues and links in a word reference thread.
From the article:
¡Y lo peor es que puede ganar! Ojalá y lo haga: será la mejor manera de acabar con un premio que hace rato no tiene sentido. Los mejores de América no están en América. Aquí están los NO mejores de América. Evidente.
The phrase that caught my attention is:
I have never heard that or seen that written until now.
Ojalá requires the subjunctive but in standard Spanish one would say
Ojalá lo haga or
Ojalá que lo haga BUT no
y in the middle. Apparently, this usage is common in Spain, Mexico and in some parts of South America and obviously used by this journalist. The usage is colloquial according to the comments.
Ojalá + subjunctive or
Ojalá que + subjunctive is standard and correct.
The article has quite a few examples of subjunctive that one can analyze but this one caught my attention because the form is non-standard. However, I learned a colloquial form of the expression. Next time I see it I will not be surprised.
http://www.eltiempo.com/deportes/fu...ista-al-futbolista-de-america-166356 Article
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/ojalá-ojalá-y-ojalá-que.444981/
-MP.