YET MORE SIMPLE FORM VERB TENSES

The last time we looked at verbs, we learnt about the simple form tenses that help express mood, rather than just moments in time.

By simple form we mean: forms that do not require other auxiliary words.

English has only two simple form tenses: the past tense and present tense. If we want to express other tenses in English we must use auxiliary words in combination with a given verb. The best example being the use of the word “will” to convey the future.

Today we will finish our look at Spanish simple form verb tenses, learning how to use and conjugate two more tenses.

Conditional tense
The conditional tense in Spanish is used when talking about things that would happen, or that would be true under certain conditions. For instance: “He would help you if he could”.

Therefore whenever we see the word “would” in English, we should be thinking about the conditional tense when considering how we might express the same mood within Spanish.

As with English, there are several reasons or triggers why we might speak in the conditional tense. These include: conveying desires for the future, being polite, offering advice, guessing what might have happened and so on.

Let’s see some uses of the conditional tense in some basic sentence constructions, so we can start to understand when it is appropriate to use this form. We've underlined the verbs that have taken the conditional form for clarity.

Spanish	Meaning	Trigger
Me gustaría eso, mucho	I would like that very much	Desires for the future
¿Hablarías más despacio?	Would you speak more slowly?	Being polite
Yo que tú, no viviría allí	If I were you, I wouldn't live there	Offering advice
No estoy seguro, supongo que lo comerían	I'm not sure, I suppose they would eat it	Guessing what will happen

Below are the regular verb conjugations for hablar, comer and vivir in the conditional tense. As usual, we have highlighted the word endings. Providing the verb is regular, these endings will work with any respective –ar, -er and –ir verb.

hablar (to speak) | conditional tense

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	hablaría	hablaríamos
2nd Person	hablarías	hablaríais
3rd Person	hablaría	hablarían

comer (to eat) | conditional tense

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	comería	comeríamos
2nd Person	comerías	comeríais
3rd Person	comería	comerían

vivir (to live) | conditional tense

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	viviría	viviríamos
2nd Person	vivirías	viviríais
3rd Person	viviría	vivirían

The conditional tense can be thought of as functioning rather like the future tense, expect instead of the expressing the auxiliary modal word “will” we are expressing “would”.

Imperfect subjunctive tense
Arguably, we’ve left the most tricky simple form verb tense until last. Tricky for two reasons: Firstly because there are two forms of this tense, and secondly that this tense is often confused by newcomers with the conditional tense.

Before we look at how we should use this tense, let’s see how we form the conjugations. As already mentioned, there are in fact two forms of this tense. Both versions are correct as part of modern Spanish, although the second version shown is considered the archaic version.

Below are the regular verb conjugations for hablar, comer and vivir in the imperfect subjunctive tense. As usual, we have highlighted the word endings.

hablar (to speak) | imperfect subjunctive

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	hablara | hablase	habláramos | hablásemos
2nd Person	hablaras | hablases	hablarais | hablaseis
3rd Person	hablara | hablase	hablaran | hablasen

comer (to eat) | imperfect subjunctive

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	comiera | comiese	comiéramos | comiésemos
2nd Person	comieras | comieses	comierais | comieseis
3rd Person	comiera | comiese	comieran | comiesen

vivir (to live) | imperfect subjunctive tense

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	viviera | viviese	viviéramos | viviésemos
2nd Person	vivieras | vivieses	vivierias | vivieseis
3rd Person	viviera | viviese	vivieran | viviesen

The imperfect subjunctive tense follows the same basic rules as the present subjunctive in terms of triggers (wishing, feeling, requesting, doubt etc…) However, the main difference is our time frame, as the imperfect subjunctive is normally used when referring to the past.

Let’s see some phrases in the present subjunctive, then in the imperfect subjunctive, so we can compare and contrast the two tenses.

Spanish	Meaning	Tense
"Es una pena que no hables español"	It's a shame that you don't speak Spanish	present subjunctive
"Es una pena que no hablaras español"	It's a shame that you didn't speak Spanish	imperfect subjunctive
"Espero que comas bien"	I hope you eat well	present subjunctive
"Espero que comieras bien"	I hope you ate well	imperfect subjunctive
"Quiero que él viva conmigo"	I want him to live with me	present subjunctive
"Yo quería que él viviera conmigo"	I wanted him to live with me	imperfect subjunctive

So, as we can see from the above examples, the imperfect subjunctive can be used very much like the present subjunctive, expect to convey ideas, feelings or opinions in the past.

This said, the imperfect subjunctive tense can be used in other ways too, but only with certain verbs. Being polite for instance. However, this is for reasons of grammatical legacy and is rather a complex subject. Thus, in the interest of keeping things as simple as possible for today, we will return to this tense in more detail another time.

Conclusion | En conclusión
Today concludes our look at Spanish simple form verb tenses. However, we are far from finished learning all the tenses that exist within the Spanish language. We are yet to learn the remaining compound tenses. But as we will soon discover, now that we have a basic grasp of simple form tenses, we are able to conjugate other helper verbs into other modal words that will give us the opportunity to form all kinds of complex, subtle and nuanced phrases.

CLOSE 