Español 201 |
Profesora A. Castrillejo |
The conditional tense |
The conditional is the equivalent of the would +
verb construction in English.
USES OF THE CONDITIONAL :
1.
CONJECTURE
OR PROBABILITY:
The conditional is used to
refer to what would happen if a certain condition(s) existed.
Me gustaría ser rico porque no trabajaría,
tendría mucho dinero viajaría mucho y me divertiría mucho.
(I would like to be a
rich man because I wouldn’t work
, I would have a lot of money
and I would have a lot of fun)
2.
POLITENESS
The conditional is used to
express politeness when making a request or giving a suggestion.
¿Podría darme una carta de
recomendación?
Could you give a letter of recommendation?
Deberías
dejar
de fumar.
You should give up smoking.
3.
HELPFUL
EXPRESSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THE CONDITIONAL
|
Tal
vez: maybe |
Quizás: maybe |
Probablemente: probably |
4.
FORMATION
As in the future tense,
attach the endings directly to the infinitive to form the conditional. The
endings are the same for the three kinds of verbs ( -ar, -er, -ir)
|
Verb endings added to the infinitive form |
Example: cantar ( to sing) |
|
-ía |
cantaría |
|
-ías |
cantarías |
|
-ía |
cantaría |
|
-íamos |
cantaríamos |
|
-íais |
cantaríais |
|
-ían |
cantarían |
5. IRREGULAR VERBS IN THE CONDITIONAL
The irregular verb stems studied for
the future tense are also irregular in the conditional.
|
Infinitive |
Future andconditional stem |
Conjugation
|
|
Decir |
dir- |
diría,
dirías,diría, diríamos, diríais, dirían. |
|
Hacer |
har- |
haría,
harías, haría, haríamos, haríais, harían. |
|
Caber |
cabr- |
cabría,
cabrías, cabría, cabríamos, cabríais, cabrían. |
|
Haber |
habr- |
|
|
Poder |
podr- |
|
|
Querer |
querr- |
|
|
Saber |
sabr- |
|
|
Poner |
pondr- |
pondría,
pondrías, pondría, pondríamos,
pondríais, pondrían. |
|
Salir |
saldr- |
saldría,
saldrías, saldría, saldríamos,saldríais, saldrían |
|
Tener |
tendr- |
|
|
Valer |
valdr- |
|
|
Venir |
Vendr- |
|