Conditional Perfect in Spanish Grammar

 Usage
 Verb Conjugation in Spanish Conditional Perfect
  Online exercises to improve your Spanish

Introduction
The conditional perfect (condicional compuesto), is a Spanish compound tense. It is used to
express possibility in the past i.e. actions the could or would have taken place. We can also
express wishes or suppositions about the past.

Learn when to use the conditional perfect in Spanish grammar and master the conjugation of
regular and irregular verbs in this tense. Then test your knowledge in the exercises. In tense
comparison, you will find an overview of all the tenses in Spanish grammar.

Example

Rosa: Si ayer no hubiera llovido, Juanjo y yo habríamos ido a la playa.

Aytana: ¡Ya te vale! Habrías podido avisarnos, ¿no crees?

Rosa: Perdona. Creí que no habríais querido venir.

Aytana: Si nos hubiérais llamado, lo habríais comprobado. Además nosotros vamos siempre a la
playa. ¿Crees que habríamos dicho que no?

Usage
We use the conditional perfect to express:
  completed actions including invitations, requests, wishes, suggestions

Example:
Habrías podido avisarnos.
 suppositions about the past i.e. What might have happened?

Example:
Creí que no habríais querido venir.
¿Crees que habríamos dicho que no?
 actions that would have taken place in the past under other circumstances

Example:
Si ayer no hubiera llovido, Juanjo y yo habríamos ido a la playa.

Verb Conjugation in Spanish Conditional Perfect

To conjugate verbs in the conditional perfect, we use the condicional simple of verb haber + the
past participle.

person haber past participle

yo habría
tú habrías hablado
él/ella/usted habría
aprendido
nosotros/-as habríamos
vosotros/-as habríais vivido
ellos/ellas/ustedes habrían

Past Participle

We construct the past participle by removing the infinitive ending and adding the corresponding

ending: -ado for -ar  verbs or -ido or -er/-ir verbs.

Example:
hablar - hablado
aprender - aprendido
 vivir - vivido

Irregular past participles

 If there is a vowel before the -ido  ending, we have to add an accent on the i of the ending.
This shows us that each vowel needs to be pronounced separately and not as a diphthong.

Example:
leer – leído
traer - traído
 Some verbs have an irregular and/or regular participle form. These can be found in the
following list:
verb past participle translation
irregular regular
abrir abierto open
decir dicho say
escribir escrito write
hacer hecho do/make
freír frito freído fry
imprimir impreso imprimido print
morir muerto die
poner puesto place/set
proveer provisto proveído provide
suscrito/
suscribir sign/subscribe
suscripto
ver visto see
return
volver vuelto