Future and

Conditional Tenses

Before learning to form the future and conditional, let’s look at them in English:

Future: I will speak.

The future tense in English ALWAYS has the word “will” (or “shall”). It can be abbeviated “’ll” (“I’ll speak,” “she’ll speak,” etc.). As its name indicates, it shows actions that have not yet taken place but that will do so in the future.

Conditional is a little trickier, because we don’t have a conditional tense in English. We don’t call it a tense, at any rate. But the equivalent is “would” + verb:

I would speak.

Now, don’t get this mixed up with the imperfect:

I would play outside every day when I was little. (imperfect)I would play outside today if I could. (conditional)

With the conditional, there’s usually a stated or implied “if”:

I wouldn’t eat that chocolate (if I were you).I would buy that car (if I had enough money).

The conditional is also the future of the past. Huh? Consider:

“I will go with you,” Juan said yesterday.

Juan said that he would go with me.

What moment in time are we looking at? “Juan said” – that’s our moment. The action of Juan’s going with me? That hasn’t happened yet at the moment of “Juan said,” but the whole sentence is in the past. So “would” is the future of “Juan said,” but the whole sentence is in the past, so “would” is the future of the past. Get it?

The long and short of it is that “would” is ALWAYS part of the conditional translation.

The stem for both the future and the conditional is the infinitive:

hablar- comer- vivir-

trabajar- leer- escribir-

mirar- volver- abrir-

Following are the endings for the future (-ar, -er, and –ir verbs):

-é -emos

-ás -éis

-á -án

hablaré hablaremos comeré comeremos viviré viviremos

hablarás hablaréis comerás comeréis vivirás viviréis

hablará hablarán comerá comerán vivirá vivirán

Note: the future endings, with the exception of the “vosotros” ending, are the same as the present perfect helping verb minus the “h”:

-é -emos-ás -éis-á -án

he hemoshas habéisha han

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.

Irregular Verbs

No verbs stem change in the future or conditional, and there are no spell changes. However, there are several irregular stems:

verbs where a d verbs where the e verbs where two replaces the i or e disappears letters disappear

salir saldr- poder podr- decir dir-

venir vendr- querer querr- hacer har-

poner pondr- saber sabr-

tener tendr- haber habr-

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.

ConditionalLike the future, the conditional uses the infinitive as its stem. All the stems that are irregular in the future (poner – pondr-, hacer – har-, etc.) are also irregular in the conditional.

Here are the endings for the conditional:

hablaría hablaríamoshablarías hablaríaishablaría hablarían

Note that these endings are exactly the same as the –er/-ir endings for the imperfect:

comía (imperfect) comería (conditional)

SummaryThe future and conditional use the infinitive as the stem (no dropping of the –ar, -er, -ir) and have the same irregular stems.

The future translates with “will,” and the conditional translates with “would.”

future endings conditional endings

-é -emos -ía íamos

-ás -éis -ías íais

-á -án -ía ían

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.