Un libro bueno.....gracias Gordon.....

Great to learn this, thank you.

My teacher (native spanish) told me that using "que vengan" is "should be coming" but not "must come or have to come". The possibility of kids coming is less than "que va a venir" (which is a fact or information going to happen).

If you want to say I'm telling the kids to come tomorrow, would that be.. Estoy diciendo que los niños vengan mañana?

yo mandé una carta a Juan.. is this .ok?

I have never really had a problem with understanding the use of subjunctive with verb decir. I was and I'm still able to understand how and why it is used. My only question has always been why people do not use the indicative when leaving a message over the phone. For example, in Mexico people always say: "Dile (a Juan) que me llame" instead of Dile que me llama. Dile que me llame is correct because it's sort of a command or an order. But I would also say "dile que me llama" could be just passing along the info that I called, which would mean the use of the indicative. I use the subjunctive because everyone uses it, but I must say in my mind both ways should be accepted. I would like your thoughts about this. I'm not trying to be pedantic, just trying to understand the reasoning behind it. Thanks.

Ah, yes, the old Decir vs Subjunctive. Massively confusing IMO. Thanks for the refresher! If I wanted to spell out the 'have to' part, would I say 'estoy diciendo que los ninos tengan que venir'? Or would we go back to 'tienen'?

If the subjunctive is about something they might happen, then why does it equal must when it gets placed with decir like that-shouldn't it be like- "I'm not sure if they will come?"