The Spanish Conditional tense.

Conjugate regular verbs in the conditional tense

Here’s how to conjugate the three main Spanish verb groups in the conditional tense:

Notice how the verb endings are added to the WHOLE infinitive, and are the SAME for all three verb groups?

Don’t forget the accent on the letter I.

Spanish conditional v English conditional

The Spanish conditional tense corresponds to the English conditional tense (WOULD + VERB).

• Yo hablaría con él.
  I would speak with him.
• Nosotros viviríamos.
  We would live.
• Ellos comerían.
  They would eat.

Here’s what the questions look like:

• ¿Hablarías con ella?
  Would you speak to her?
• ¿Venderías la casa por más dinero?
  Would you sell the house for more money?
• ¿Irías a la fiesta vestido así?
  Would you go to the party dressed like that?

Me gustaría

Without doubt, one of the verbs which is most utilised in the conditional tense is ‘gustar’. We’ll use it for a lot of common expressions and also questions, particularly when we want to propose something.

• Me gustaría comer algo.
  I’d like to eat something.
• Me gustaría pasar por la tienda de Juan.
  I’d like to stop by Juan’s shop.

Questions:

• ¿Te gustaría ver la habitación?
  Would you like to see the room?
• ¿Te gustaría comer fuera esta noche?
  Would you like to eat out tonight?

To learn how to use gustar to talk about liking in general, visit our video class on liking and loving in Spanish.

Irregular verbs

The verbs which are irregular in the conditional are often only a little bit irregular. The endings are the same as the regular verbs, but the stem does no use the infinitive.

This same group of verbs is also irregular in the futuro simple, another tense which uses the infinitive as the stem for conjugations.

• Yo diría que te has equivocado.
  I’d say that you’ve made a mistake.
• Yo pondría la bicicleta en la terraza.
  I’d put the bicycle on the terrace.
• En su lugar, yo lo haría.
  In his place, I’d do it. / If I were him, I’d do it.
• En tu lugar, no lo haría.
  In your place, I wouldn’t do it / If I were you, I wouldn’t do it.

More tenses

Check out our Grammar section for classes on all the most important Spanish tenses.