The conditional tense is used to express the idea of “would”. It can also be used to indicate conjecture or probability of recent past events. When conjugating verbs in the future tense, the last two letters of the verb are not removed, rather the endings are placed at the end of the infinitive form of the verb, just like with future tense. Here are a few examples:
Yo sacaría muchas fotos. I would take a lot of pictures.
¿Cuándo irías a la tienda? When would you go to the store.
¿Cuántos años tendría la chica? I wonder how old the girl was.
La chica tendría diez años. The girl must habe been/probably was ten years old.
| Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Ella Usted |
-ía |
Ellas Ustedes |
-ían |
There are a few irregular stems to be aware of as well. The first group loses the last two letters of the infinitive and adds -r to the end. It still gets the same endings as other future tense verbs.
| Verb | New Stem |
|---|---|
haber (to have) poder (to be able to) querer (to want) saber |
habr- podr- querr- sabr- |
Another set of irregularities will be verbs that keep only the stem and add dr to the stem before putting the new endings on.
| Verb | New Stem |
|---|---|
salir (to go out) tener (to have) valer (to be worth) venir (to come) |
saldr- tendr- valdr- vendr- |
There are also two verb with completely irregular stems. They are:
The conditional tense, similar to the future tense, is also used to express wonder or probability.
¿Quién sería esa mujer? I wonder who that woman was.
Sería Josefina. It must have been Josefina.
¿Cuánto valdría ese carro? I wonder how much that car was worth.
Valdría mucho. It must have been worth a lot.
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