Spanish Adverbial Clauses?

Question

sorry for asking again.... xP the practice problem says:

"Después de que (tú aprender) a hacerlo, enséñame."
you have to conjugate the thing inside the parenthesis.

they said the answer was "aprendes"
isn't it supposed to be "aprendas"? or why is it aprendes?

Answer 1

The exercise may say whatever but the answer is

aprendas

Después de que tú aprendas a hacer, enséñame.

Answer 2

Sure it's "aprendas", Penguingirl.

It's because you are talking about a possibility. It's not a real thing. When you talk about possibility/ probability you MUST use the tenses from the "subjuntivo" and when you talk about real things you use the ones from the "indicativo".

Example:

Después de que aprendiste a hacerlo, me lo enseñaste.
"After you learned to do it, you taught me it. "

So, here "aprendiste" and "enseñaste" are both in "pretérito indefinido", which is a tense of the "indicativo". You use it because it really happened. It's a real action that occurred in the past.

But, "Después de que aprendas a hacerlo, enséñame" is a thing that haven't happened yet. It's a possibility. You'll teach me that only AFTER you learn it. It's not a real thing.

I know it's not an easy thing to learn those tenses because English is more simply when it comes to structures.


Is it clear for you now?! Hope it helps.

Answer 3

Since ensen~ar is in the command form, which is basically (although not really) the subjunctive tense, the other verb goes in present tense.