The ‘conditionnel’ is the English equivalent of the conditional tense. Yet, they are not built the same way and that’s why French Lessons Sydney offers you this extra lesson!
Can you speak conditionally? No more secret after this article!
<< Me, if I was very very rich. I would give away my money until I am only very rich. Very rich is enough for me.>>
Formation of French conditional
Whereas in English, the conditional is a compound verb (would + the infinitive), in French it is a one-verb form. To determine the tense of the verb, we should therefore look at its ending.
For the -ir and -er groups of verbs, we only need to add the right ending at the end of the infinitive.
For the -re group, the last ‘e’ is removed and replaced by the correct ending.
Look at this table:
The endings are the same as the ones from the imparfait. However they are not added to the radical of the verb, but to its infinitive (or explained on the table above, to the stem of the future which is really the verb infinitive).
What about verbs with spelling changes and irregular stems?
In fact, if you already know the future tense, you just have to use the irregular stems from the future and add to them the ending provided by the conditional.
Eg. the verb ”vouloir” (to want)
- Je voudrais
- Tuvoudrais
- Il voudrait
- Nous voudrions
- Vousvoudriez
- Ilsvoudraient
Use of the Conditionnel
As in English, the conditional describes an action that would happen in certain circumstances.
Eg. I would eat French food more often, if there was a French restaurant nearby. ->Je mangerais de la nourriturefrancaise plus souvent, s’il y avaitun restaurant francaispres de chez moi.
Do you want to know more about French grammar, or more about what we do at French Lessons Brisbane? Don’t hesitate anymore longer and contact us at info@frenchlessonssydney.net.au !
