Spanish language Q&A Forum

I read the lesson thoroughly, and Silvia’s answer below. I still struggled a bit with thinking about the mood of the sentence being determined by shared/non-shared knowledge or context in the case of a past event. For me, it has been a helpful trigger to think of aunque + indicative as directly translating to “even though”, but the situations that go to subjunctive something more like “while it may ”.  I think this fits with Silvia’s comment that the main point of the phrase is sort of what comes next, the background/shared information is an acknowledgement of context, not the primary statement. Think about our sample phrase: “Sí, pero aunque fuera un éxito, tuvimos que ceder demasiado por nuestra parte. “.  In my mind the approximate translation would be “Yes, while it may have been a success, we had to compromise too much on our side. And, “…might…” makes me think subjunctive. I hope this is accurate, and that it helps someone else.

I'm sorry, @Silvia, but I'm not following your response to John O. The intro paragraph refers to the phrasing "como si," but nowhere else in the lesson is the structure "como si" used anywhere. All of the examples are just "como" by itself. 

I don't understand the relevance of the "como si" reference. Can you please clarify?

I understand the lesson, but would you be kind enough to explain if these phrases are interchangeable with words such as "quienquiera" and "dondequiera"?

For example, is  "Sea quien sea el que me ha mandado flores, debe ser un romántico." the same as "Quienquiera sea el que me ha mandado flores, debe ser un romántico."?

I think I understand, but I would appreciate some clarification on this lesson. The way I'm reading this, it seems that if the person or object being referred to is general, then you don't use the "lo/la/los/las" But if it refers to a specific person or object, then you must use them.

For example:
"Has llamado a un doctor?" "No, no he llamado."
but
"Has llamado al doctor / a su doctor?" "No, no lo he llamado."

or
"Tienes dinero para el concierto?" "Si, tengo."
but
"Tienes el dinero que ahorraste para el concierto? "Si, lo tengo."

Am I on the right track?

Am I right in thinking, after looking at all the examples, that a comma is common but not obligatory before más/menos/mejor/peor in this construction?

I can do the dictation but there are words I don't know the meaning of even if I can write them correctly. In the French version of the course - if you hover the cursor over the word it gives the translation.  Without that I have to go to google translate to get the meaning.  I find this annoying!   Surely the vocabulary should be  available, or the translation without having to find a dictionary or use google translate!?

Now I am confused about the use of Presente de subjuntivo versus futuro. If the condition is presently probable or future probable, then the future is used? If the present condition is unlikely or not probable, then I can use the subjuntivo? So the issue is the certainty or uncertainty of the condition? John will win/John (is certain to win): Juan ganará. I hope that John will win: Espero  que John gane.

Once I move past a certain topic, will it eventually come back around again? i am worried I am blowing through the study plan pretty fast an thinking, what if I forget it later. I also don't want to save every single lesson to my notebook.  Does this work like spaced repetition wheere the topics will resurface evtueally to practice? 

I typed in a simple question:  HOW TO FORM IMPERFECT SUBJUNCTIVE and received many pages with endings of imperfect subjunctive and its uses, without once being given the simple method - the stem on which to add endings.  Is this anywhere explained?