The conditionnel
The short answer
The conditionnel is the futur simple stem with imparfait endings, so it costs almost nothing once you know those two. It does three jobs: polite requests (je voudrais), hypothetical situations (je partirais), and reporting something unverified. After si, it never appears.
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The rule
The conditionnel is formed by taking the stem of the futur simple and adding the endings of the imparfait: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient. Every verb that is irregular in the future is irregular here in exactly the same way, so there is no new list to learn. It expresses politeness, hypothesis and unverified information, and it appears in the result half of a second conditional. The si clause itself takes the imparfait, never the conditionnel, which is the rule that decides most sentences in practice.
| Form | Structure | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Stem | the futur simple stem: usually the infinitive | parler → parler- |
| Endings | -ais-ais-ait-ions-iez-aient | je parlerais |
| Irregular stems | the same ones as the future | être → ser-, avoir → aur-, aller → ir- |
| Si clause | siimparfaitthen conditionnel | Si j’avais le temps, je viendrais. |
| Past conditional | conditionnel of avoir/êtreparticiple | j’aurais fait |
Part 1 of 3
Politeness
This is the use you will need first and most. Je voudrais rather than je veux, pourriez-vous rather than pouvez-vous, j’aimerais rather than j’aime. The conditionnel softens a request from a demand into an enquiry.
Je voudrais is worth learning as a fixed phrase before you learn the tense that produces it: it is the normal way to order anything in a shop or restaurant, and je veux sounds blunt to the point of rudeness.
Je voudrais un café, s’il vous plaît.
I’d like a coffee, please.
Pourriez-vous répéter, s’il vous plaît ?
Could you repeat that, please?
Est-ce que ça vous dérangerait de fermer la fenêtre ?
Would you mind closing the window?
Part 2 of 3
Hypotheses and si clauses
The conditionnel carries the result half of an unreal situation: si j’avais plus de temps, je lirais davantage. The si half takes the imparfait, and putting a conditionnel there is the single most common error with this tense.
The pattern has three levels. Si + présent gives a future result (si j’ai le temps, je viendrai). Si + imparfait gives a conditionnel (si j’avais le temps, je viendrais). Si + plus-que-parfait gives a past conditional (si j’avais eu le temps, je serais venu).
Si j’étais toi, j’attendrais.
If I were you, I’d wait.
On pourrait partir plus tôt.
We could leave earlier.
NBA suggestion, hypothesis without an explicit si.
À ta place, je ne dirais rien.
In your position, I wouldn’t say anything.
NBThe condition is carried by à ta place instead of a si clause.
Part 3 of 3
Reporting unverified information
French journalism uses the conditionnel to mark a claim as not yet confirmed: le suspect aurait quitté le pays. English needs a whole phrase for this: reportedly, allegedly, and French does it with a verb form.
It also appears in reported speech, where a future in the original becomes a conditionnel: il a dit qu’il viendrait. If you have met the English sequence-of-tenses rule, this is the same movement.
Selon la presse, il aurait démissionné.
According to the press, he has reportedly resigned.
Elle m’a dit qu’elle arriverait vers huit heures.
She told me she’d arrive around eight.
Il y aurait une centaine de blessés.
There are reportedly around a hundred injured.
Mistakes to avoid
What learners actually get wrong
Si j’aurais le temps, je viendrais.
Si j’avais le temps, je viendrais.
Si never takes a conditionnel. The condition goes in the imparfait and the result in the conditionnel. French children are taught this with the rhyme “les si n’aiment pas les rais”, which tells you how common the error is among native speakers too.
Je veux un café, s’il vous plaît.
Je voudrais un café, s’il vous plaît.
Je veux is grammatical and sounds curt to the point of rudeness in a shop. The conditionnel is not decoration here. It is what makes the sentence an ordinary polite request rather than a demand.
Je serai content de vous aider.
Je serais content de vous aider.
If you mean I would be glad to, you need the -s. One letter separates the future from the conditionnel in the je form, and it turns a polite offer into a flat assertion about the future. The difference is audible in speech but small, so it is worth checking in anything written.
Il a dit qu’il viendra.
Il a dit qu’il viendrait.
After a past reporting verb, a future shifts to the conditionnel. Keeping the future is understandable but marks the sentence as unedited, and exams penalise it.
Now use it
Conditionnel & si-clauses
Politeness, hypotheses, and getting the si… tense pairing right. Reading a rule and being able to apply it are different skills, and only one of them shows up when you speak.
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Questions
Asked and answered
- Is the conditionnel a tense or a mood?
- French grammar traditionally calls it a mood, alongside the indicative and subjunctive, though many modern descriptions treat it as a tense of the indicative. Nothing practical depends on the answer, the forms and uses are the same either way.
- How is it different from the futur simple?
- Same stem, different endings: je parlerai is the future, je parlerais the conditionnel. The future asserts something will happen; the conditionnel makes it dependent on a condition, real or implied. In the je form only one letter separates them.
- What is the past conditional for?
- Regret and unrealised possibility: j’aurais dû partir plus tôt, I should have left earlier. It is built like the passé composé with the auxiliary in the conditionnel, so it needs no new forms, and j’aurais dû, j’aurais pu and j’aurais voulu are worth learning as fixed phrases.