Spanish conditional tense: endings, irregular stems and how to say would

The Spanish conditional tense is how you say "would": comería, I would eat; me gustaría, I would like. It is the tense of politeness, of daydreams, of "what if." And here is the good news up front: it is built exactly like the future tense — on the whole infinitive, with one set of endings — so if you know one, you are twenty minutes from the other.

After 40 years of teaching English speakers, I can tell you the conditional is rarely where students get stuck on forms. Where they get stuck is on meaning: "would" in English does at least three different jobs, and only one of them is the Spanish conditional. In this guide I'll give you the endings, the twelve irregular stems (the same ones as the future), and a clear map of when "would" is -ía and when it is something else entirely.

The big pictureWhen to use the Spanish conditional tense

The conditional (el condicional, sometimes called el potencial) describes what would happen — under some condition, real or imagined. Here are its five jobs, roughly in the order you'll need them:

• Polite requests and wishes — Me gustaría una mesa para dos. (I would like a table for two.) ¿Podría ayudarme? (Could you help me?) This is the use you'll reach for on day one of any trip.
• Hypothetical situations — Con más tiempo, viajaría más. (With more time, I would travel more.) The condition can be stated or just implied.
• Advice and opinions, softened — Yo no haría eso. (I wouldn't do that.) Deberías descansar. (You should rest.)
• The future seen from the past — Dijo que llegaría a las ocho. (He said he would arrive at eight.) When you report what someone said about the future, the future becomes conditional.
• Guessing about the past — Serían las diez cuando llegó. (It was probably ten when he arrived.) The same "probability trick" the future tense does for the present, the conditional does for the past.

Hypotheticals with si: a light touch

The full "if I were rich, I would…" sentence pairs the conditional with the imperfect subjunctive: Si tuviera dinero, viajaría por el mundo. (If I had money, I would travel the world.) The pattern is si + imperfect subjunctive, conditional. You don't need to master the subjunctive to start using the conditional — begin with polite requests and implied conditions, and add the si clause when you're ready. My cuando + subjunctive guide is a gentle way into that mood.

The patternHow to form the conditional: endings on the infinitive

Do not chop off the -ar/-er/-ir. Take the entire infinitive and add these endings — the same six for every verb in the language:

-ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían

Every single form carries a written accent on the í. That accent is not decoration — it puts the stress on the ending: hablaRÍa.

Two observations that make this tense easy. First, the endings are identical to the imperfect endings of -er/-ir verbs (comía, vivía) — you just attach them to the whole infinitive instead of the stem. Second, the yo and él forms are the same (hablaría), so context or a pronoun tells you who is speaking.

The 12 irregular stems (identical to the future)

Twelve verbs use a shortened stem instead of the full infinitive. The endings stay exactly the same. If you have studied the Spanish future tense, you already know every one of these stems:

Three families: drop a vowel and add d (tendr-, pondr-, saldr-, vendr-, valdr-), drop a vowel (podr-, habr-, querr-, sabr-, cabr-), or shorten hard (dir-, har-).

Real SpanishConditional tense examples in real situations

From the classroomCommon mistakes English speakers make

1. Using the conditional for "would" meaning "used to." "When I was a kid, we would go to the beach every summer" is a past habit, not a hypothetical. Spanish uses the imperfect: Íbamos a la playa todos los veranos. If "would" can be replaced by "used to," it is the Spanish imperfect tense, not the conditional.
2. Putting the conditional in the si clause. Si tendría dinero… is a very common error, and it's wrong in standard Spanish. The si clause takes the imperfect subjunctive (si tuviera); the conditional goes in the result clause.
3. Chopping off the infinitive. Comía is imperfect (I used to eat). Comería is conditional (I would eat). Same endings, different base — keep the whole infinitive.
4. Regularizing the irregular stems. Hacería, tenería, ponería do not exist. It's haría, tendría, pondría — the same twelve stems you use in the future.
5. Translating "could" and "should" without the conditional. "Could you…?" is ¿Podría…?; "you should" is deberías. Both are conditional forms. My guide to could in Spanish untangles when "could" is podría and when it's pude or podía.

Don't confuseConditional vs future tense

Same stems, same construction on the infinitive, different endings and different meanings. The future says what will happen; the conditional says what would happen.

If you can say tendré, you can say tendría. The full future system is in the Spanish future tense guide.

The conditional sits at the hinge between the indicative tenses and the subjunctive: it's the last tense you can learn entirely on its own, and the first one that starts asking for a partner. When you want to see where it fits in the whole system, I keep an overview of all the Spanish tenses, in the order I teach them.