Spanish: An Essential Grammar

The conditional tense

The conditional tense is used primarily in the main clause of a conditional

sentence (see Chapter 13). For its use with deber‘to have to’, poder‘to be

able to’ and querer‘to want’, see Chapter 16.

In addition it has the following uses.

Reported speech

The conditional tense can be used to report what was originally expressed

in the future tense:

Anunció que se jubilaría en julio.

He announced that he would retire in July.

Note: In this use the imperfect tense of ir +a+ infinitive, e.g. iba a jubilarse, is more

common.

Supposition

The conditional tense is also used to indicate possibility or supposition

about paststates:

Serían las diez cuando llegamos.

It must have been ten o’clock when we arrived.

However, in the media it commonly occurs with reference to the present,

to express possibilities or rumours when the precise facts are not known:

El huracán se localizaría ahora en el sur del golfo.

The hurricane now appears to be in the southern gulf.

El objetivo sería eliminar las dudas.

The aim seems to be to remove the doubts.

Compound tenses

As in English ‘I have run’, the compound tenses in Spanish consist of an

auxiliary verb (haber) + past participle.

The four compound tenses are discussed individually below. However, the

following generalizations apply to all of them.

(a) A past participle neveragrees with the subject or object of the auxil-

iary verb haber, e.g. María y Andrea se han ido‘María and Andrea have

gone’, No la he visto nunca ‘I have never seen her’.

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Compound

tenses

135