Conditional Mood in Spanish Grammar

When to use the Spanish conditional

Use the conditional in Spanish for:

• recommendations, suggestions and advice

  Examples:

  Quizá debería consultarlo con mi nieta primero.Maybe I should check with my granddaughter first.

  Yo, en tu lugar, hablaría primero con tu compañía de la luz.If I were you I would speak to your electric company first.

• wishes (possible or impossible) about the present or future

  Example:

  ¿Le gustaría pagar menos en su factura de la luz?Would you like to pay less for your electricity bill in future?

• hypotheses;

  Example:

  ¿Qué tendría que hacer?What would I have to do?

• conditional clauses (if-clauses)
  

  Example:

  Si contratara nuestra tarifa, ahorraría cada mes en su factura.If you sign up to our new tariff, you will save on your bill every month.

How to conjugate the Spanish conditional

To conjugate verbs in the Spanish conditional, we take the infinitive of the verb and add the endings -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían.

Note: we use the same endings for -ar, -er and -ir verbs.

Reflexive Verbs

If we use a reflexive verb in the conditional, we always place the reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nos, os, se) before the verb.

Example:

yo me cambiaría

tú te cambiarías

él se cambiaría

nosotros nos cambiaríamos

vosotros os cambiaríais

ellos se cambiarían

Irregular Verbs in the conditional

The verbs that are irregular in the conditional are also irregular in the future tense.

These verbs change their stem or undergo a spelling change, but take the same conditional endings as regular verbs.

Verbs that add a -d-

The verbs ponerput, salirgo out, tenerhave, valercost/be worth and venircome replace the final vowel of their infinitive endings with a -d before adding the conditional endings.

Verbs that lose a vowel

The verbs caberfit, haberhave, poderbe able to and saberknow lose the final -e of the infinitive ending before adding the conditional endings.

*We only use the 3rd person singular of haber in the conditional to make impersonal sentences. The other forms are used in the conditional compuesto.

Verbs with an irregular stem

The verbs decirsay/tell and hacermake/do change their stems completely before adding the conditional endings. The new stem is the same in all forms.