Conditional

The conditional: The conditional (el condicional) is how Spanish says «would». You use it to talk about hypothetical situations («yo viajaría más»), to be polite («me gustaría un café», «¿podrías ayudarme?»), to express the future seen from the past («dijo que vendría») and to guess about the past («serían las tres»). The good news: it's built almost exactly like the future, with one set of endings for all three verb families.

el condicional

the conditional tense («would + verb»)

el infinitivo

the infinitive — the whole, unchanged verb; the conditional is built on it

la terminación

the ending — for the conditional it is added to the WHOLE infinitive

la raíz irregular

the irregular stem — the same short list as the future (tener → tendr-)

hipotético

hypothetical — describing something imagined or unreal

la cortesía

politeness — softening a request («me gustaría…»)

When you reach for it: If you want to say «would», be polite («me gustaría», «¿podría…?»), or describe what you'd do if something were true — it's the conditional. It's the tense that makes your speaking and writing sound mature and courteous.

Whole infinitive + the -ía endings: To form the conditional of a regular verb: keep the whole infinitive and add the ending -ía / -ías / -ía / -íamos / -íais / -ían. The same endings work for -ar, -er and -ir, so hablaría, comería, viviría all match. Every ending carries an accent on the í.

Same irregular stems as the future: If you learnt the future, you already know the conditional: it uses the exact same nine irregular stems (tener → tendr-, hacer → har-), just with the -ía endings instead of -é. So «tendré» (I will have) becomes «tendría» (I would have).

Four everyday jobs: The conditional does several jobs. Here are the four you meet most in the exam — each with a Spanish example. The first two (hypothesis and politeness) are by far the most useful for your speaking and writing.

The polite phrases worth memorising: Two conditional phrases earn easy marks for tone: «me gustaría + infinitivo» (I would like to…) and «¿podrías / podría + infinitivo?» (could you…?). They turn a blunt «quiero» into a courteous request — exactly the register the examiners reward.

What I would do, sentence by sentence: Here's a short paragraph about an imagined life, built one sentence at a time. Every verb is in the conditional — watch for the irregular stems tendría and the polite me encantaría. Read it once for the meaning, then tap Ver traducción for the English or 🔊 to hear it.

Steal this for «¿Qué harías?»: Notice the pattern: «Si tuviera…» (an unreal if) + a string of conditional verbs (aprendería, viajaría, buscaría). Swap in your own dreams and you have a ready-made answer for «¿Qué harías si…?» Keep the -ía accent on every verb.

The slips to watch for: The big trap is confusing the conditional with the imperfect: -er and -ir verbs have an imperfect that also ends in -ía (comía = I used to eat). The difference is the whole infinitive: the conditional keeps it (comería = I would eat) while the imperfect drops the ending (comía). The other slip is dropping the accent.

Keep the whole infinitive and the accent: For «would», the verb keeps its whole infinitive before -ía: comería (would eat), not comía (used to eat). And the same irregular stems as the future apply: tendría, not tenería. Always keep the accent on the í.