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mood. It describes events that are not guaranteed to occur, those that are often
dependent on certain conditions. While the French conditional mood has a full set of
conjugations, the English equivalent is simply the modal verb "would" plus the main
verb.
1. Le Conditionnel: If...then
While French uses the word si in the "if" or condition clause, it does not use a term for
"then" in the result clause. The conditional verb itself is used in the result (then) clause,
while only four other tenses are permitted in the si clause: présent, passé composé,
imparfait, and plus-que-parfait.
However, you can't say "si vous voudriez" to mean "if you would like," because the
French conditional can never be used after si.
The verb aimer (to like, love) is used to express a polite desire, sometimes one that
cannot be fulfilled:
3. Conjugating le Conditionnel
Notice how we had to drop the "e" in dire before adding the conditional endings. This is
the sort of change you will find in that handful of verbs that do not follow the standard
conditional conjugation pattern. Other than that, you can see how easy it is to form the
conditional from almost any verb, even the irregular ones.
So which verbs are you going to have to pay attention to when it comes to the
conditional verb mood? Dire and other verbs that end in -ire are easy compared to some
of the others, a few barely resemble the infinitive form while others take on more subtle
changes.
The following verbs are irregular in the conditional mood. Notice how the stems change
and that they do not use the infinitive form like the other verbs do. There are two rules
here:
When conjugating these into the conditional, simply attach the endings noted above
according to the subject pronoun in your sentence.
5. Conditionnel passé
The conditional passé corresponds to the English structure would have + past participle.
We use it to look back on past situations and express alternative outcomes. To conjugate
the conditionnel passé we use the conditional form of avoir/être followed by the participe
passé of the verb.
In negative sentences, the past participle comes after the second part of the
negation (pas).
Example:
J’aurais rigolé. → Je n’aurais pas rigolé.
Je serais parti.→ Je ne serais pas parti.
For reflexive verbs, we put the reflexive pronoun and the auxiliary verb between the
two parts of the negation (ne … pas).
Example:
Je ne me serais pas trompé dans mon calcul.