Are you sure they can do this?
Are you sure they can do this?Are you sure they can do this?I am reading that “être sûre que“ does not take the subjunctive in affirmative statements. It takes the subjunctive in negative statements or inverted questions. So if that is the case, peuvent should be puissent.
Source: “https://www.uu.edu/dept/language/pdfs/Subjunctive.pdf “ (last page)
Are you sure they can do this?
Follow up - I’m reading that être sûre que can be followed by indicative or subjunctive, depending on the doubt that the speaker has peuvent is neutral; puissent introduces doubt.
I say “speaker” above but need to emphasize that this remark applies mainly to spoken French.
Are you sure they can do this?
I agree it can be either in a declarative sentence. However, I wonder if a question already implies doubt and therefore it should be subjunctive here.
I’m seeing some chatter on the internet that subjunctive is not used much in spoken French but is used in formal French or business settings. NOTE: it seems that “il faut que“ ALWAYS takes subjunctive and people will notice that even in spoken French: “Il faut que je sois” and also: “il faut que tu fasses” as examples. There are probably others like that.
One article says that it is still common in formal French so it is important to be comfortable with it. I have extensively read about it on the internet and will include a couple links below. It seems that in spoken French especially, the subjunctive is a big gray area. I had surmised that because it seems that for whatever its faults, Tatoeba is a good indicator for how French is used in speaking informally. And for that, I love it. I have seen several places on Tatoeba where subjunctive technically should have been used but it wasn’t. And I don’t see any of the native French speakers jumping up and down about this subject like they sometimes do (thank you everybody for all your help). I added a note to my original post that it applies esp. to spoken French.
I’m including some links here that caused me to finally accept this.
This reddit link where folks who say they are native French speakers say something like, yeah, you’re supposed to use subjunctive here but it sounds funny (and other interesting comments);
There is also something in Le Bon Usage about it in spoken French. I’m looking for it in the 14th edition, available online for free. The applicable section starts at section 894 on page 1102. If I find what I’m looking for, I will post the applicable section. There are some interesting remarks in section 897. It starts out saying the rule and moves into some more interesting remarks where they talk about some controversy about the subjunctive “Considérez l’aventure du subjonctif : quand la règle est trop incommode, on passe outre.”
I’m not sensitive, so I hope anyone feels free to correct me on this or anything.
I would say that’s true.
It’s the "il faut que" construction that must be followed by subjonctive.
That is very true 
- If you don’t use subjonctive after “il faut que”, I believe the vast majority of people will definitely notice.
Right. Can’t think of them all, but off the top of my head (talking about declarative sentences):
-Il est important que + subjonctif
-Il est capital que + subjonctif
-Il est primordial que + subjonctif
-Je veux qu’il vienne.
-Je souhaite qu’il soit présent
-J’aimerais qu’elles soient là.
These are the obvious ones to me: They call for subjunctive, even in spoken French.
It kind of is…
As a learner, I would focus on the clear cut cases, and not worry too much about cases in which not even native speakers can seem to agree…
Perfect, thanks for your additions and correction! I made a correction in my post based on this. I went down the rabbit hole on this topic because they weren’t using it all the time on Tatoeba. So I won’t make any more comments about the subjunctive on other sentences. I think the subject has been well-covered for our purposes. Also thanks to Paris2020 for commenting that it is supposed to be subjunctive because that is a true statement.
You’re welcome
There’s been a few threads on the subject, but feel free to “ask away” if you have any doubt. After all, that’s what forums are for…