dirigierais

Dirigierais is a Spanish verb form that functions as the second-person plural imperfect subjunctive of the verb dirigir. It is used with the subject vosotros and appears in subordinate clauses to express hypothetical situations, wishes, doubt, or conditional scenarios. The form is most common in Spain and in literary or formal writings; in much of Latin America, where the pronoun vosotros is less common, speakers typically use the imperfect subjunctive forms corresponding to ustedes (dirigieran or dirigiéran).

Morphology and usage

The form dirigierais comes from the stem dirig- plus the imperfect subjunctive ending -ierais. There is an accented variant dirigiérais found in some dialects and historical texts, which uses the same verb root but with the accent placement of the -érais variant. In modern everyday speech, the vosotros form is often avoided in favor of ustedes, which would use dirigieran in the imperfect subjunctive.

Examples

- Si vosotros dirigierais mejor la empresa, obtendríais mejores resultados.

- No creí que vosotros dirigiérais el proyecto de esa manera.

- Ojalá que dirigierais las actividades con mayor coordinación.

Related forms

The corresponding forms for other subjects include dirijo (present), dirigía (imperfect indicative), and dirigieran or dirigiéran (imperfect subjunctive for ustedes/ellos). The imperfect subjunctive has both ra and se variants (dirigierais vs. dirigierais/dirigiérais), with variation mainly in regional usage and style.

Etymology

Dirigierais derives from dirigir, with the imperfect subjunctive endings characteristic of -er/-ir verbs in the vosostros form. It shares its roots with other languages that use a similar subjunctive mood and verb-subject agreement.