He told me that whatever might happen, he was prepared for it.
In this sentence, both forms of the imperfect subjunctive are used "pasara lo que pasase."Would this combination of two forms of the imperfect subjunctive be used by native speakers? Wouldn’t they most likely consistently use either the -ase or ara form in a single sentence rather than mixing them? Is there a subtle change in meaning by combining the both forms?
I’ve personally never come across this variation before, but it seems to be used, albeit not as frequently as the one using straight repetition:
BTW, seeing the graph, I can’t help wondering about the surge in populatity of this idiom in the last two decades.
Thank you for your reply. The Google Ngram Viewer is tool that I have not used before but I will definitely use it again in the future. Out of curiosity, I plotted your graph with a third option: “pasase lo que pasase” to see its popularity. Google Ngram Viewer: pasase lo que pasase
Yes, it’s a handy tool. I’ve added the link to my popover/slideout menu for easier access.