The conditional tense in Spanish expresses what you would do or what would happen under certain circumstances.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-1

WooHoo!! Like future tense, the conditional has only one set of endings for AR, ER, and IR verbs. I the conditional tense!

There are some irregulars, however. The easy peasy aspect of this is that the irregulars are the SAME as the irregulars for future tense. Atencin! All forms of the conditional have an accent mark.
8.1-2

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

For irregular verbs, add the conditional endings to the irregular stems.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-3

Atencin! The polite expressions Me gustara... (I would like...) and Te gustara (You would like...) used by lex and Maite are examples of the conditional.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-4

While in English the conditional is a compound verb form made up of the auxiliary verb would and a main verb, in Spanish it is a simple verb form that consists of one word.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-5

The conditional is commonly used to make polite requests.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-6

In Spanish, as in English, the conditional expresses the future in relation to a past action or state of being. In other words, the future indicates what will happen whereas the conditional indicates what would happen.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-7

The English would is often used with a verb to express the conditional, but it can also mean used to, in the sense of past habitual action. Spanish is different!! To express past habitual actions, Spanish uses the imperfect, not the conditional.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-8

Spanish has the conditional of probability, which expresses conjecture or probability about a past condition, event, or action. Compare these Spanish and English sentences:
Seran a las once de la noche cuando Elvira me llam. (It would have been/It was probably 11 p.m. when Elvira called me.) Son el telfono. Llamara Emilio para cancelar nuestra cita? (The phone rang. I wondered if it was Emilio calling to cancel our date.)

Note that English conveys conjecture or probability with phrases such as I wondered, probably, if and must have been. In contrast, Spanish only uses one form to get all those ideas across.

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-9

Indica la forma apropiada del condicional de los verbos.

1. 2. 3. escuchara, leera, esculpira Yo ____________________________ (escuchar, leer, esculpir) T ____________________________ (apreciar, comprender, compartir) Marcos ____________________________ (poner, venir, querer)

4.
5. 6. 7.

Nosotras ____________________________ (ser, saber, ir)

Ustedes ____________________________ (presentar, deber, aplaudir) Ella ____________________________ (salir, poder, hacer) Yo ____________________________ (tener, tocar, aburrirse)

8.

T ____________________________ (decir, ver, publicar)

Copyright 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

8.1-10