La policía revisó esa casa para asegurarse de que los zapatos robados no estuvieran allí.

Sentence Discussions Spanish
#1
English Original Sentence

The police searched that house to be sure the stolen shoes were not there.

I would like to question the subjunctive estuvieran, since I believe that that changes the meaning from “be sure” to “make sure”.

Disclaimer: I’m not a native speaker of either language.

#2

Any thoughts on this?

#3

Las oraciones subordinadas adverbiales finales.

#4

My problem is that, apparently, asegurarse can be used with either the indicative or the subjunctive. That makes me read the sentence as the police “searched” the premises in order to remove the stolen shoes, not to check whether they were there.

#5

I guess you can interpret it like that too.

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