Conditional in French

Conditional in French

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Conditional - a new mode

• A mode is a grammatical term the refers to a specific verb category.

• Indicative: to express facts, real life

• Imperative: to give a command

• Interrogative: to ask a question

• Conditional: to express a condition (when something is dependent on something else happening), also used for politeness

• Subjunctive: to express a wish or possibility (we do this next year)

How to form it

• You need the conditional stem, plus the correct ending.

• You already know the endings: they're the imparfait endings!

• Regular verbs: The stem is simply the verb in the infinitive

• Note: for -RE verbs, drop the E before adding the ending

• Unfortunately, the irregular verbs can have very funky stems in the conditional

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Endings

• Je - ais

• Tu - ais

• Il/elle/ on - ait

• Nous - ions

• Vous - iez

• Ils/elles aient

Stems - regular verbs

• ER - stays in the infinitive - parler

• IR - stays in the infinitive - choisir

• RE - take off the E - attendr

• Prendre - prendr

• Boire - boir

• Partir/sortir - stay the same

Stems - irregular verbs

• Avoir - aur

• Être - ser

• Faire - fer

• Aller - ir

• Voir - verr

• Venir - viendr

• Courir - courr

Stems - Irregulars

• Vouloir - voudr

• Pouvoir - pourr

• Savoir - saur

• Envoyer - enverr

• Devoir - devr

• Falloir - faudr

• Recevoir - recevr

Using the conditionnel

The conditionnel can be used in politeness (la politesse), and in saying things with 'would' in English. For example: You would like this book.

It is called the conditionnel because most of the time it requires a certain condition to be met in order to be true.

Example: If we were virtual, we would sleep late.

The condition is being virtual, and the result is sleeping late.

Politesse

• The conditional can be used by itself to be polite. You have used the conditional without knowing it... je voudrais!

• To ask the time of a stranger: Auriez-vous l'heure?

• When making a purchase: Je voudrais...

• When making a polite request: J'aimerais...

Using with a condition - if/then statements

• If a condition is met, then something would happen

• If = si, you do not need to say 'then' in French

• The 'if' part of the sentence is in the imparfait

• The 'then' part, or result, is in the conditional

Si statements

• If imparfait!

• If I was rich, I would retire = Si j'étais riche, je ferais la retraite

• We would be happier if we had more cats = Nous serions plus heureux si nous avions plus de chats!

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