When and How to Use the Conditional Mood in Spanish

So, you’ve grasped the basics of Spanish grammar. That’s great! But now you’re starting to wonder—how do I talk about things that would happen? What if I won the lottery? What if I lived in Spain? Suddenly, hypothetical scenarios are popping into your head... and instead of helping, your textbook has only given you trust issues.

That’s probably why you searched “how to use the Spanish conditional tense”—either because you’re finally ready to make sense of all those what-ifs, or because grammar explanations have failed you one too many times.

Either way, we’ll help you sort this out.

What is the conditional tense?

The conditional tense in Spanish is your go-to for talking about all the woulds in life. I would travel more if I had money. She would date you if you actually texted back. It’s how you express hypothetical situations, polite requests, and those dreamy “what if” scenarios that live rent-free in your brain.

Grammatically speaking, it’s pretty low-maintenance—you don’t even have to chop up the verb. Just add a couple of endings and bam! There is the conditional. Of course, a few verbs like to stir up drama and change their stems (we’ll get to those), but overall, this tense is surprisingly beginner-friendly.

Now, let’s move on to how to conjugate it.

How to conjugate the Spanish conditional tense

Conjugating the conditional tense is surprisingly simple. Unlike other tenses that chop off the endings or change the verb root a lot, the conditional just keeps the full infinitive of the verb and adds a special set of endings right on top.

Here are the endings you’ll use for -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. They’re exactly the same for all three groups:

To see how the conditional tense works in practice, let’s look at three regular verbs, one from each conjugation group.

Hablar (to speak)

Comer (to eat)

Vivir (to live)

There you go! So far, so good, right? But, of course, some verbs like to keep things interesting by bending the rules in the conditional tense.

Irregular verbs in the Spanish conditional form

While most verbs in the conditional tense just stick the endings onto the infinitive, a handful decide to change their stems before doing so—classic irregular behavior.

The endings stay exactly the same, but the root of the verb shifts. Here are some of the most common ones you’ll run into:

Let’s take a look at how these irregular stems actually behave in context. Here are full conditional conjugations for three of the most common ones: tener (to have), decir (to say), and hacer (to do/make).

Tener (to have)

Decir (to say/tell)

Hacer (to do/make)

Now that you’ve seen how to form the conditional tense—regular or not—let’s look at when to actually use it.

Uses of the conditional tense

The conditional tense doesn’t just make you sound fancy; it’s a go-to for a bunch of real-life situations. Here are the most common ways you'll use it:

To talk about hypothetical situations

This is the classic use of the Spanish conditional: imagining what would happen if things were different.

To make polite requests or offers

The conditional softens your tone. It’s the difference between "Give me that" and "Could you pass that to me?"

To express the future from a past perspective

When you’re reporting something that was going to happen, but you're speaking from the past.

To give advice

Using the conditional of deber is like saying “should” in English.

To express probability in the past

Sometimes the conditional is used to guess or speculate about what might have been true.

Now that you’ve got a handle on when to use the conditional tense, let’s clear up how it differs from other similar tenses so you don’t get confused along the way.

Conditional tense vs. other tenses

In Spanish grammar, the conditional tense is the go-to for “would” statements and hypothetical situations. Unlike the future tense, which talks about what will happen, the conditional focuses on what could or might happen if certain conditions are met.

It’s also different from the imperfect, which describes ongoing or repeated past actions, because the conditional focuses on possibilities and polite requests. Keep these differences in mind, and you’ll avoid mixing things up when speaking or writing.

Common expressions and phrases using the conditional

The conditional tense shows up in plenty of everyday Spanish phrases, so here are more examples so you can make the conditional part of your language toolkit.

Now that you’ve got the conditional tense down, you’re basically ready to predict what podría go wrong (or right)

Hopefully, now you have a good grasp of the Spanish conditional tense: how to form it by adding endings to the full infinitive, when to use it for expressing possibilities and polite requests, and even how to handle those tricky irregular verbs. The next step? Keep encountering it in the wild.

¡Buena suerte y hasta la próxima!