Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses, Second ... - Ktooba.com

TENSE Conditional perfect
TIME Refers to an uncompleted action
KEY PHRASES “Would have”
The conditional
perfect tense
STRUCTURE Compound tense: haber conjugated in the conditional
past participle
Of all the tenses, the conditional perfect holds the dubious honor of being the only
one to express no action whatsoever. It is the favorite tense of excuse makers. Th e
conditional perfect is used to refer to an action that would have taken place but
didn’t, because something got in the way or some specifi ed condition was not
met.
In any sentence containing the conditional perfect, there will always be an
“if ” or a “but” lurking about, whether stated or implied. People whose verbiage
contains a good deal of conditional perfect sentences most likely are those who
don’t get a lot done and who have a lot of excuses for everything that they don’t
do.
I would have paid you, but I couldn’t fi nd my checkbook.
If it weren’t so diffi cult, I would have baked you a pie.
Th e conditional perfect also expresses probability or conjecture with regard to an
action either in the remote past, for example, “Where do you suppose they had
been?” or with reference to time, for example, “It must have been three o’clock
when he arrived.”
Formation of the conditional perfect
Th e conditional perfect is indicative. Because it is a compound tense, the auxiliary
verb haber is conjugated in the conditional tense and is followed by the past participle
of the main verb.
habría past participle habríamos past participle
habrías past participle habríais past participle
habría past participle habrían past participle
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