When writing a post elsewhere on the board, I found myself unsure whether I was choosing the right verb forms. Which is correct?:

No es que creamos que España [ esté or está ] en las Américas.

and

Me parece más probable que el español [ haya dicho or dijera or dijo ] "soy español"

Thanks in advance!

No es que creamos que España está en las Américas.
Yo estoy
Tu estás
Él/Ella/ Ello ( para cosas) está

Me parece más probable que el español haya dicho or dijera "soy español"
Estas dos pueden ser correctas Haya dicho si dice en casi toda esEspaña y en dijera se dice mas en el norte de España y sur América

There's a light different between 'haya dicho' and 'dijera', both are right, but when you say 'haya dicho' the act of saying was inside a unit of time that has not finish, for example today, while when you say 'dijera' it was in a finished unit of time, for example yesterday.
About the other one, I found both right, 'esté' or 'está'

What about,'No es que creemos que Espana esté en las americas....'. Using the subjunctive in 'estar' rather than 'creer', because the 'creer' verb is the subjective idea/opinion and so is reflected in the 'estar' verb (an idea, I'm not sure).

Hi, miche. The esté/está one is tricky (and I need to figure out these subtleties before I go for my English-Spanish translation exam next year). On the one hand, creer usually takes the indicative, even though it's an opinion. But I'm not sure whether the negation ("No es que creamos que...") might make it subjunctive. Saludos.

No Miche, that's wrong, I don't know why but it sounds very strange.

Just an addition to what Miguelito said about the difference between "haya dicho" and "dijera". This is something that was hard for me to grasp the first time I went to study in Spain, as I was soo used to mexican spanish.

In Spain, "haya dicho" is used just as Miguelito said, within a specific time frame that has not yet ended. Dijera would be used when that time frame has ended.

In contrast, in Mexico, and Im assuming other parts of latin America the use is different. In Mexico, dijera would almost always be used, even if it was just said a couple mintues ago within the same conversation. In this respect the use is more similar to in the usa, "I said", "I have said".

Correct me if I'm wrong, this is just how it has been explained to me by my friends from Mexico, and Spain . Obviously either makes sense, what is typical just depends on the location .

Kelly

Thanks Miguel, I have such a long way to go and a head made out of wood, but it's fun.
Good luck El Viajero.

Thanks for the replies! It's areas like these where my grasp of the subjunctive gets hazy.

"esté" (subjunctive)sounds OK to me because "no es que creamos que" is like saying "no creemos que". On the other hand "creer" has not been negated within its own clause, so if you were being very strictly syntactic about it, it should probably be "está". Personally, I would go with the semantics (esté). They can't touch you for it!