A lesson in understanding the uses of the conditional tense in French

Written by Modern Foreign Languages tutor Isabella.

Many of you studying GCSE French will now know how to recognise, and possibly even use, the conditional tense. However, here is a quick re-cap of how to form the conditional tense and its uses:

So, we use the future stem of the verb and add the imperfect ending. Let’s first breakdown what future stem and imperfect endings mean.

 The future stem of a verb is what that verb looks like before you add the future ending. In regular -er, -re, and -ir verbs, they would look like this: Parler- (to talk), Descendr- (to go down), Sortir– (To go out). Of course, in French we have some irregular verbs that do not follow the rules. Here are some of them and their future stem: Savoir – Saur-, Avoir – Aur-, and Faire- Fer-.

The imperfect endings are the ending used when we write or speak in the imperfect tense (the past tense used to refer to habitual actions in the past)

Here are the imperfect endings as a refresher:

Je  -ais
Tu  -ais
Il/Elle/On  -ait
Nous  -ions
Vous  -iez
Ils/Elles  –aient

So, here is an example of the conditional tense:

• Regarder (to watch/see)
• Future stem: Regarder_
• Imperfect ending: ais (if the subject of the sentence is either “I” or “You”
• Sentence example: Je regarderais la télé… (I would watch the tv)
  
  

Although noticing the conditional tense is easy, knowing when to use them and their different uses are a little more complicated.

Below, I have outlined some uses of the conditional tense.

• The most common use of the conditional tense in French is when referring to what would/could happen in the future.
  • For example:
    
    

Après mes vacances, j’aimerais voyager en Australie

• Another common use of the conditional tense is when we refer to hypothetical situations. In this case, we also must use the imperfect tense. This is most commonly known as the “Si clauses”.
  • For Example : « Si j’étais riche, j’achèterais trois îles. » 
    
    

(If I was rich, I would buy three islands)

• The conditional tense is also used when asking for something politely.  This works the same in English – if you were buying an ice cream you would say “I would like a chocolate ice cream” – the same principle applies in French.
  • For example: “Je voudrais une tasse de thé, s’il vous plaît“

(I would like a cup of tea, please)

Now, for some advanced conditional tense uses! (Remember, for GCSE and even A-level you won’t be required to study this particular use)

In French, documents, statements and claims that refer to disputed or alleged facts often use the conditional tense to highlight when a fact has not been proven.

This technique is also used by journalists when reporting unascertained facts.

For example:

L’orage aurait causé plusieurs millions d’euros de dégâts.

In English, we can’t translate the sentence above to “the storm would have caused millions of euros of damages” – it just wouldn’t make much sense for a journalist to use this when referring to something that has already happened. Instead, we’d say “Apparently the storm caused millions of euros of damages”.

In English, we would therefore use words such as, apparently, supposedly, allegedly, or may, to translate a sentence like the one above.