explicaran

Explicaran is a word form in Spanish, the third-person plural imperfect subjunctive of the verb explicar. Explicar means to explain. The form explicaran is used in subordinate clauses that require the imperfect subjunctive, typically after verbs of doubt, desire, necessity, or emotion, and in conditional or hypothetical clauses introduced by si. For example: “Si ellos explicaran con más detalle, entenderían” or “No creían que ellos explicaran la razón.” The imperfect subjunctive expresses past or hypothetical situations and often appears in sequences of tenses, reported speech, or clauses dependent on a past-tense main clause.

Etymology: explicar comes from the Latin explicare, formed from ex- “out” plus plicare “to fold,” originally meaning to unfold or to explain.

Morphology: explicaran derives from the regular -ar verb pattern in the imperfect subjunctive. In the third-person plural, the ending -aran is added to the stem explic-, yielding explicaran.

Usage notes: In modern everyday speech, some speakers prefer other tenses in many of these contexts, but the imperfect subjunctive remains standard in formal writing, literature, and in established sequences of tenses. It is commonly found in indirect speech after verbs of saying or thinking in the past, in hypothetical statements about past events, and in clauses following si or other conjunctions that require a past subjunctive.

See also: Spanish verb conjugation, Explicar, Imperfect subjunctive.