Subjunctive II For Intermediate learners

The subjunctive II can be used in the following situations:

[Wenn + Subjunctive II + Subjunctive II]

There are two ways to form Subjunctive II for the main clause. You can directly conjugate the verb in Subjunctive II or use werden (Subjunctive II) + infinitive in order to express a hypothetical scenario. The second one is mostly used in spoken German and is not preferred in formal writings.

You can use Subjunctive II to talk about things that you dream about, or you wish were true. They usually start with "Ich wünschte..." (I wish...). You can use the Subjunctive II form of the verb or werden (Subjunctive II) + infinitive for the second part of it.

The Subjunctive II form can soften a request or statement and therefore make it polite. Usually the subjunctive II forms of können and haben are used for this usage, but würden is also common.

In order to give advice without sounding too harsh you can use the Subjunctive II form of "sollen".

In order to form the reported speech in the past perfect, you need to use Subjunctive II forms of haben and sein.

[hätte/wäre (Subjunctive II of haben/sein) + Past Participle]

In order to form Subjunctive II in German, you can directly conjugate the verb in Subjunctive II. First, you need to find the simple past stem. Next, you need to add the special ending to the stem.

[simple past stem (with an umlaut) + ending]

Here is the ending table for the Subjunctive II form of verbs:

The conjugation of Subjunctive II is a bit different for irregular verbs. For most irregular verbs, an umlaut is added to the stem vowel. Here are the conjugations for some common irregular verbs.