Conditional Simple

The simple indicative conditional has two main uses in Spanish. Let's learn more about them:

Hypothetical Situations

Rule 1. The first use we are going to review is hypothetical situations. The simple conditional is used to express dreams or desires.

Rule 2. Similarly, it can be used to talk about hypotheses or assumptions in the past or in the future.

Hypothetical Situations - Form

Rule 3. The conditional is a fairly easy tense, because the following endings apply to all regular verbs no matter whether they end in -ar, -er, or -ir.

Irregular verbs

Rule 4. Irregular verbs in the conditional use the same stem they use for the simple future.

For instance, tener in simple future would be (yo) tendré. This is the stem you will use. Other irregular verbs that fall in this category are hacer, poder, poner, salir, venir, and querer. Once you identify the stem, add the corresponding endings of the conditional tense.

Common Phrases to Talk About Wishes

Rule 5. Since language is made up of sentences that speakers constantly recycle, we are going to show you a very common phrase that you can use to talk about desires without having to think about conjugations.

me encantaría + infinitive verb form

You can substitute me encantaría for te encantaría, le encantaría, nos encantaría, les encantaría, or os encantaría to talk about other people.

Conditional of Courtesy

Rule 6. The second main use of the conditional is to sound more polite. This is mainly used in customer service contexts, to make requests, to ask for recommendations, etc. Here are some common phrases you can use to convey this meaning.

Me podría + infinitive + complementary information

Me gustaría saber si + verb in present subjunctive

Quería saber + qué + (subject) + verb