copyright © 2008 vista higher learning. all rights reserved.8.1-1 the conditional tense in spanish...

Copyright © 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved. 8.1-1

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


The conditional tense is formed much like the future tense. The endings are the same for all verbs, both regular and irregular. For regular verbs, you simply add the appropriate endings to the infinitive. ¡Atención! All forms of the conditional have an accent mark.


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


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.


The conditional is commonly used to make polite requests.


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.


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. To express past habitual actions, Spanish uses the imperfect, not the conditional.

Copyright © 2008 Vista Higher Learning. All rights reserved.

The conditional of deber, like the present indicative, translates as should.– No deberías quemar la comida.

• You should not burn the food.– Deberían encender el horno ahora.

• They should turn on the oven now.

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Indica la forma apropiada del condicional de los verbos.

1. Yo ____________________________ (escuchar, leer, esculpir)

2. Tú ____________________________ (apreciar, comprender, compartir)

3. Marcos ____________________________ (poner, venir, querer)

4. Nosotras ____________________________ (ser, saber, ir)

5. Ustedes ____________________________ (presentar, deber, aplaudir)

6. Ella ____________________________ (salir, poder, hacer)

7. Yo ____________________________ (tener, tocar, aburrirse)

8. Tú ____________________________ (decir, ver, publicar)

escucharía, leería, esculpiría


The conditional perfect– Is formed with the auxiliary verb haber + past

participle– Yo habría asado– Tú habrías metido– Ud., él, ella habría medido– Nosotros/as habríamos pelado– Vosotros/as habríais adelgazado– Uds., ellos, ellas habrían hervido

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The conditional perfect– Is used to express an action that would or should

have occurred but did not• Habría congelado la sopa, pero mis hijos ya se

la habían comido.– I would have frozen the soup, but my children had

already eaten it.

– The conditional perfect is also used to express probability or conjecture• Amelia habría asistido a una escuela culinaria

antes de hacerse famosa.

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