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  1. Si pudieras vivir donde quieras/quieres, donde vivirías?
  2. Si yo tuviera la casa que está/esté en Madrid, viviría allí.
  3. Si me hubieran regalado la casa que estuviera/estuvo en Madrid, viviría allí.

¿Cómo es correcto usar subjuntivo o indicativo en las subordinaciones adjetivas? Hay unas reglas?

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  • Pienso que como regla general el verbo que es en subjuntivo sigue la misma forma que el primer verbo. Pudieras -> quieras. Tuviera -> está. Hubieran -> estuviera. Sobre las reglas no las conozco, pues se trata de casos muy específicos en mi opinión. Veamos qué dicen los otros.
    – Joze
    Jul 10, 2013 at 9:16
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    It is not quite clear the meaning of sentences 2 and 3. Could you write them in English to know it exactly?
    – fedorqui
    Jul 10, 2013 at 12:32
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    It may just be a matter of a poorly chosen example but sentences #2 and especially #3 give the impression that the house can move. I would vote for está in sentence #2 and none of the above for sentence #3, where I'd say "...la casa *que estaba* en Madrid", or better "...la casa *que hay* en Madrid" or, eveb better yet "la casa *de* Madrid" for both sentences, but then the verb tense concordance example is lost.
    – deStrangis
    Jul 11, 2013 at 9:24

3 Answers 3

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I'm guessing that by the second and third sentences you want to say:

  1. If I had the house that's in Madrid, I would live there.
  2. If they had given me the house that was in Madrid, I would have lived there.

Because you have a definite article I would say to use the indicative.

  1. "Si yo tuviera la casa que está en Madrid, viviría allÍ" (mejor: la casa en Madrid)
  2. "Si me hubieran regalado la casa que estaba en Madrid, habría vivido allí"
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  • Thank you, this is exactly what I wanted to say. It is very clear in English but Spanish subjunctive always makes me sad.
    – Andrey Smirnov
    Jul 10, 2013 at 18:09
  • @AndreySmirnov if the answer was helpfull please vote the answer up. If it was the best answer and solve your doubts please select the tick.
    – Newbie
    Jul 10, 2013 at 20:12
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I think that estar is a tricky verb for the example as I've said in the comments.

I agree with fedorqui on sentence #1

Si pudieras vivir donde quisieras, ¿Dónde vivirías?

In sentences #2 and #3 your problem is that you are looking for concordance in the subordinate sentence (the one introduced by que), and while you certainly cannot use any tense, there is no requirement for concordance.

Let's rephrase sentence #2 without estar, which IMHO shows it more clearly:

Si vendieran el coche, lo compraría.

The concordance is vendieran (imperfect subjunctive)/compraría(conditional indicative).

But in this sentence:

Si vendieran el coche que vi en Madrid, lo compraría.

But you can replace vi for a number of tenses: he visto, había visto, veo, veré... They all work, although they convey a slightly different meaning. Similarly you can replace the subordinate sentence by other complements:

Si vendieran el coche de Madrid, lo compraría.

Si vendieran el coche amarillo, lo compraría.

Can't resist to mention the name of the song by Les Luthiers:

Quien conociera a María, amaría a María.

The same could be said about sentence #3

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    +1 because mentioning Les Luthiers is always a good thing.
    – Leonardo Herrera
    Jul 13, 2013 at 18:13
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I would say:

  1. Si pudieras vivir donde quisieras, ¿donde lo harías?

Regarding the other sentences, it is not clear what you want to say.

  1. Si yo tuviera la casa que está/esté en Madrid, viviría allí.
  2. Si me hubieran regalado la casa que estuviera/estuvo en Madrid, viviría allí.

For reference, you can check the Segundo condicional.

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