A2
The conditional
How the French conditional is formed, its use in si clauses, and why almost every polite request uses it.
Take the future stem and add the imperfect endings. Nothing new has to be learnt.
| je parlerais | I would speak |
| tu parlerais | |
| il / elle parlerait | |
| nous parlerions | |
| vous parleriez | |
| ils / elles parleraient |
The irregular stems are the same ones: je serais, j’aurais, j’irais, je ferais, je pourrais, je voudrais.
It is the polite form
This is its commonest use by far. Je veux is a demand; je voudrais is a request.
Je voudrais un café, s’il vous plaît.
I would-like a coffee, if-it you pleases
I’d like a coffee, please.
Pourriez-vous m’aider ?
could-you me-help
Could you help me?
Je veux un café.
Je voudrais un café.
Grammatical, and it lands like I want a coffee said to a waiter. The conditional is not decoration here — it is the difference between ordering and demanding.
si clauses
The pairing is fixed: imperfect after si, conditional in the other half.
Si j’avais le temps, je viendrais.
if I-had the time, I would-come
If I had time, I’d come.
Si j’aurais le temps, je viendrais.
Si j’avais le temps, je viendrais.
Never a conditional after si. French children are corrected for this too, which is some comfort — les si n’aiment pas les rais is the schoolroom rhyme.
The other pairing you already know: present after si, future in the other half — si j’ai le temps, je viendrai.
Reported speech
A future inside a past sentence becomes conditional, exactly as English shifts will to would.
Il a dit qu’il viendrait.
he has said that-he would-come
He said he would come.