Condicional simple

Me gustaría viajar a Japón.I would like to travel to Japan.

The Spanish simple conditional (condicional simple) is built the same way as the simple future: endings go straight onto the infinitive, unchanged, and the same small set of verbs that shortens its stem in the future shortens it here too. Once you know one, the other is nearly free.

Quick shortcut: infinitive + -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían.

The regular pattern

Me gustaría un café, por favor. (I would like a coffee, please.) ¿Comerías insectos? (Would you eat insects?) Viviríamos en la playa si pudiéramos. (We would live at the beach if we could.)

Every ending carries a written accent, and the same set works for -ar, -er and -ir verbs alike — there's no separate paradigm to learn per conjugation. Unlike the present tense, vos takes the exact same form as tú here; the conditional has no distinct voseo ending.

The same twelve irregular stems as the future

The condicional simple reuses, without exception, the same shortened stems that futuro simple uses — only the endings differ:

Yo en tu lugar, lo haría hoy mismo. (In your place, I'd do it today.) ¿Podrías ayudarme un momento? (Could you help me for a moment?) Nos vendría bien un descanso. (A break would do us good.) A compound or derived verb usually keeps its base verb's irregular stem too — desharía, mantendría — exactly as it does in the future, but check each one individually: bendecir and maldecir (from decir) are actually regular here, ✅ bendeciría/maldeciría, never ❌ bendiría/maldiría.

Three everyday jobs

These are the three most common everyday uses. The conditional also appears as the result clause of a hypothetical si + imperfect subjunctive sentence (Si tuviera tiempo, viajaría más) — imaginary conditions get their own dedicated lesson.

Polite requests

Softening a request with the conditional instead of the present makes it sound less direct: ✅ ¿Podrías cerrar la ventana? rather than the blunter ¿Puedes cerrar la ventana? — both are correct, but the conditional reads as more polite. ¿Te importaría esperar un momento? (Would you mind waiting a moment?) works the same way.

Advice

Yo que tú, hablaría con ella. (If I were you, I'd talk to her.) Yo en tu lugar no lo compraría. (In your place, I wouldn't buy it.) Deberías descansar más. (You should rest more.) These frames pair a fixed introduction — yo que tú, yo en tu lugar, or the modal deber — with the conditional to give advice without a direct command.

Wishes

Me gustaría aprender a tocar el piano. (I'd like to learn to play the piano.) Querría pedirte un favor. (I'd like to ask you a favor.) Preferiría quedarme en casa. (I'd rather stay home.) This is the softer, more tentative cousin of quiero — useful for a wish you're not necessarily about to act on.

Not the Spanish "would" for a repeated past action

English "would" does double duty — polite/hypothetical and a repeated action in the past ("Every summer we would visit my grandmother") — but Spanish keeps these apart. The second sense is the plain imperfect, never the conditional:

• ❌ Cada verano visitaría a mi abuela. → ✅ Cada verano visitaba a mi abuela. (a repeated past habit is imperfect, not condicional simple.)
• ❌ De niño, jugaría en ese parque. → ✅ De niño, jugaba en ese parque. (same trap — "I would play" here means "I used to play.")

If you can replace English "would" with "used to" and the sentence still means the same thing, it's a habitual past in Spanish — reach for the imperfect, not the conditional.

Common mistakes

• ❌ Yo tenería un perro. → ✅ Yo tendría un perro. (tener is one of the twelve irregular stems — the conditional stem is tendr-, not tene-, exactly as in the future.)
• ❌ Podrias ayudarme? (no written accent) → ✅ ¿Podrías ayudarme? (every conditional ending carries a written accent; dropping it is a spelling mistake.)
• ❌ Cada domingo cocinaría para toda la familia. → ✅ Cada domingo cocinaba para toda la familia. (a repeated past habit needs the imperfect, not the conditional — see above.)

Quick check

1. What's the yo form of vivir in condicional simple?
2. What's the condicional simple stem of salir?
3. Rewrite politely: ¿Puedes abrir la puerta?
4. De pequeño, (yo) __________ (jugar) en la calle todo el día. Conditional or imperfect — and why?

Key takeaways

• Condicional simple = infinitive + -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían — the same endings for -ar, -er and -ir verbs, and every ending carries a written accent.
• It reuses the exact same twelve irregular stems as futuro simple (tendr-, podr-, dir-, har-...); vos takes the plain tú form, unlike in the present tense.
• Three everyday jobs: softening a request (¿Podrías...?), giving advice (Yo que tú..., Deberías...), and expressing a wish (Me gustaría...).
• A repeated action in the past ("I would visit every summer" = "I used to visit") is the imperfect in Spanish, never the conditional.