The Spanish conditional: would, politeness, and guessing

Short answer

Add -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -ían to the whole infinitive: hablaría, comería, viviría. It means "would", it is the polite way to ask for anything, and it is how Spanish guesses about the past. The twelve irregular stems are the same ones the future tense uses.

Course · Unit: The conditional CEFR B1 Reviewed by Jhoslyn Updated 2026-09-11

Draft copy. Every claim needs a native-speaker check before publishing — the byline is what makes this citable, so it has to be earned.

The endings go on the whole infinitive

Unusually, you do not remove anything. The endings attach to the complete infinitive, and they are the same for all three verb groups.

	hablar	comer	vivir
yo	hablaría	comería	viviría
tú	hablarías	comerías	vivirías
usted / él / ella	hablaría	comería	viviría
nosotros	hablaríamos	comeríamos	viviríamos
ustedes / ellos	hablarían	comerían	vivirían

One set of five endings for every regular verb in the language. Yo and él share a form, as in the imperfecto.

The twelve irregular stems

Twelve verbs use a shortened stem — and they are exactly the same twelve the future tense uses, so learning them here means learning both tenses.

Verb	Stem	Conditional
tener	tendr-	tendría
poner	pondr-	pondría
venir	vendr-	vendría
salir	saldr-	saldría
poder	podr-	podría
querer	querr-	querría
saber	sabr-	sabría
haber	habr-	habría
caber	cabr-	cabría
hacer	har-	haría
decir	dir-	diría
valer	valdr-	valdría

The pattern is not random: the first five insert a d, the next four drop a vowel, and hacer and decir are simply short. Habría is the one you will use most, because it builds the compound conditional.

Job one: would

Yo no haría eso. — I wouldn’t do that.
Me gustaría viajar a Cusco.
¿Qué harías tú?

And the half of the unreal conditional that is not the subjunctive:

Si tuviera plata, viajaría.

Subjunctive after si, conditional in the other clause. The conditional never goes after si — that pattern and the mistakes around it are in unreal conditionals.

Job two: politeness

This is the job you will use daily, and it is the reason this tense is worth learning early in B1.

¿Podría ayudarme? — could you help me? Much softer than ¿puede?
Me gustaría un café.
¿Le importaría si abro la ventana?
Deberías descansar. — you should rest. Softer than debes.
Sería posible…?

In a country that softens as much as Peru does, this register matters. ¿Me podría cobrar? in a restaurant is unremarkable; ¿me cobra? is fine but blunter.

Note querría (I would like) against quisiera (the past subjunctive, also “I would like”). Both are polite and quisiera is more common in Peru — see the past subjunctive. Querría also gets avoided because it sounds close to quería.

Job three: guessing about the past

Spanish uses the conditional for a guess about what was, the way it uses the future for a guess about what is.

¿Qué hora sería? — what time would it have been / must it have been?
Tendría unos treinta años. — she must have been about thirty.
Estaría cansado. — he was probably tired.

This is genuinely common in narration and rarely taught, and it is why you sometimes hear a conditional where the logic seems to call for a past tense.

The compound: habría + participle

For what would have happened.

Yo no habría venido. — I wouldn’t have come.
Te habría esperado.
Si hubiera sabido, no habría venido.

In relaxed speech the second half often becomes hubiera too. Both are accepted; habría is the textbook form.

The conditional or the imperfecto?

An English “would” can be either, and this is the trap.

Hypothetical → conditional. Yo iría. — I would go (if…).
Used to → imperfecto. De chico iba todos los veranos. — I would go every summer.

English uses one word for both. Spanish keeps them apart, and picking by the English is how you get it wrong. Ask whether you mean would, hypothetically or used to.

Practise

Me ___ (gustar) un café.
¿___ (poder) ayudarme?
Si tuviera tiempo, ___ (ir).
De chico ___ (ir) a Chincha cada verano.
___ (tener) unos veinte años. — she must have been about twenty
No lo ___ (hacer) yo.

→ 1 gustaría · 2 Podría · 3 iría · 4 iba (used to — imperfecto) · 5 Tendría · 6 haría.

Number 4 is the whole trap in one line.

Topics Conditionals Register and politeness

Would, politely

The endings, the shortened stems, and the trap where English “would” turns out to be the imperfecto instead.

1You want the softest way to ask a stranger for help. ¿___ ayudarme?
Answer

Podría — *¿Podría ayudarme?* is the polite register, and in Lima it is the normal one with anybody you do not know. *¿Puede?* is fine but noticeably blunter.
2___ unos treinta años. (You are guessing at her age at the time.)
Answer

Tendría — The conditional is how Spanish guesses about the past — *tendría unos treinta* is “she must have been about thirty”. *Tenía treinta años* states it as fact.
3De chico ___ a Chincha cada verano.
Answer

iba — English “I would go every summer” is a habit, not a hypothesis, so Spanish uses the imperfecto. Picking the tense from the English “would” is how this one goes wrong.
4Si tuviera plata, ___ a Cusco.
Answer

viajaría — Past subjunctive after *si*, conditional in the other half — the two halves never swap. *Si viajaría* is the mistake this pattern exists to prevent.
5“We would eat” — nosotros, from *comer*:
Answer

comeríamos — The endings go on the whole infinitive, so *comer* + *íamos*. *Comíamos* is the imperfecto and *comeremos* is the future, which are the two forms it sits between.
6“I wouldn't have come.”
Answer

No habría venido. — *Habría* plus the participle is the compound conditional — what would have happened but did not. *No había venido* is the pluperfect and just reports that you had not arrived yet.
7Ordering in a café, the softened version is: Me ___ un café.
Answer

gustaría — *Me gustaría* is the everyday polite order and you will hear it constantly. *Me gusta un café* says you like coffee as a thing, which orders nothing.
8Yo no le ___ nada. (“I wouldn't tell him anything.”)
Answer

diría — *Decir* takes the short stem *dir-*, the same one the future uses — *diría*, *diré*. *Deciría* is the regular form the language does not have.