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1.39:_Conditionnel_present
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<p><strong>Le conditionnel</strong> (the conditional) can be used in French as a tense and as a mood. As a tense, le conditionnel expresses the future seen from a past point of view. As a mood, the conditional allows us to talk about a hypothetical or imagined reality that can only occur under certain circumstances.</p> <p><strong>When to use le conditionnel in French</strong></p> <p><strong>Le conditionnel </strong>is often translated with <strong>would</strong> or <strong>could </strong>in English. In French, we use the conditional in the following cases:</p> <ul> <li>to express a wish, a possibility, or a hypothesis in the present or the future <i>(conditionnel présent)</i> or in the past <i>(conditionnel passé)</i> <dl class="example"> <dd><span style="color:#0000ff;">☞ Antoine <strong>aimerait</strong> aller en France.</span></dd> </dl> </li> <li>in if-clauses (see the section on <a href="https://francais.lingolia.com/en/grammar/verbs/en/grammar/sentence-structure/complex-sentences/conditional-sentences" target="_blank" rel="external noopener nofollow" class="link-https">conditional clauses</a> <dl class="example"> <dt><span style="color:#0000ff;font-size:1em;font-weight:normal;">☞ Si j’etais riche, je </span><strong style="color: #0000ff;font-size: 1em">vivrais</strong> <span style="color:#0000ff;font-size:1em;font-weight:normal;">en France</span></dt> </dl> </li> <li>to make polite requests <dl class="example"> <dd><span style="color:#0000ff;">☞ Pardon madame, <strong>pourriez</strong>-vous m’indiquer la gare, s’il vous plaît ? </span></dd> </dl> </li> </ul> <div class="ce_text block"> <p><strong>How to conjugate le conditionnel in French</strong></p> <p>We form the conditionnel présent by adding the <strong>imparfait </strong>endings to the stem of the <strong>futur simple </strong>form of the verb.</p> <iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="411" src="https://pressbooks.pub/introductiontofrench1/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=h5p_embed&id=67" title="Conditionnel présent" width="686"></iframe><script src="https://pressbooks.pub/app/plugins/h5p/h5p-php-library/js/h5p-resizer.js" charset="UTF-8"></script></div> <p><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="411" src="https://pressbooks.pub/introductiontofrench1/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=h5p_embed&id=106" title="Conditionnel présent - conjuguez" width="686"></iframe><script src="https://pressbooks.pub/app/plugins/h5p/h5p-php-library/js/h5p-resizer.js" charset="UTF-8"></script></p>
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