The conditional mood is used to make assumptions about the past and to hypothesize about the present and the future. This mood has two tenses: present (aka simple) and past. The conditional simple in Spanish differs from English because in English we need two words to make hypotheses: would + verb, while in Spanish you only need one:
–If you won the lottery, what would you do?
–I would buy a house with a pool.
Would you like to know more about the conditional simple? Keep reading!
How to form the conditional simple in Spanish?
In order to form the regular conditional simple, we need to attach the following endings to the infinitive forms of the verbs; for instance: estudiar → estudiaría. It doesn’t matter if the verb is an -ar, -er, or -ir verb, the endings are all the same! Easy, right?
| Pronoun | ENDINGS | -AR VERBSestudiarto study⇩would study | -ER VERBScomerto eat⇩would eat | -IR VERBSvivirto live⇩would live |
|---|---|---|---|---|
yo | -ía | estudiaría | comería | viviría |
tú | -ías | estudiarías | comerías | vivirías |
ella, él, usted | -ía | estudiaría | comería | viviría |
nosotras, nosotros | -íamos | estudiaríamos | comeríamos | viviríamos |
*vosotras, vosotros | -íais | estudiaríais | comeríais | viviríais |
ellas, ellos, ustedes | -ían | estudiarían | comerían | vivirían |
Irregular verbs in the conditional tense are formed with the same endings as above, but the first part (aka the stem) is irregular.
poner → pondría - ponería
to put → I would put
querer → querría - querería
to want → I would want
Do they look familiar? Irregular verbs in the conditional tense are the same irregular verbs in the future tense. If you want to know more on future verbs, check out our post on the Spanish future tense and don’t forget to take a look at this table for irregular verbs in the conditional!
How do you use the conditional simple in Spanish?
Now that we know how to form the conditional, let's see how and when to use it. We use the conditional simple to make assumptions about the past, to hypothesize about the present and future, to express courtesy, and to give our opinion or suggestions.
Make assumptions about the past
We use the conditional tense when we want to make assumptions or speculate about an action/event in the past. Let’s explore these examples:
¿Quién sería? ¿Qué querría?
Who would it be? What would he/she want?
Hypothesize the present or the future
We also use the conditional tense when we want to convey a hypothetical situation, that is, to talk about what someone would do (now or in the future) if they could do it.
Yo en tu lugar, llamaría al restaurante por si la encontraron.
If I were you, I would call the restaurant to see if they found it.
Make wishes
We can also use the conditional to express things that we would like to see happen. These wishes are usually expressed with verbs like gustar meaning to like, encantar meaning to love, ser meaning to be + adjective.
If you want to know more on verbs like gustar, check out this post!
Express courtesy or kindness
We also use the conditional simple to express courtesy or kindness.
Give opinions, advice, and make suggestions
Finally, we can also use the conditional to give our opinion about actions or behavior:
Opinion →
–He shouldn’t do that.
We can use modal verbs (should, would, could) in the conditional simple to give or ask for advice and make suggestions, especially with the verbs poder meaning can, deber meaning should, and tener que meaning have to:
Suggestion →
I could pick you up from the airport.
Advice →
You should exercise more.
Notice that when you use poder and deber in the conditional simple, the English equivalents are “could” and “should,” respectively. If you want to learn more on Spanish modal verbs, check out this post!
Finally, don’t forget to take a look at these Spanish conjugation tables with modal verbs in the conditional.
Conclusion
The conditional simple tense in Spanish is very easy to form! We form it by attaching the appropriate ending to the infinitive. We also discussed the main uses of the conditional, use it to:
make assumptions about the past;
make hypotheses about the past or present;
express courtesy or kindness;
express wishes;
give your opinion or advice and make suggestions.
Do you want to practice? Try out this Spanish conditional exercise we created for you! Enjoy!
:quality(80))
:quality(75))
:quality(75))
:quality(75))
:quality(75))
:quality(75))
:quality(75))