In our previous lessons on the French conditional, we briefly mentioned si (if) clauses, which express the possibility or likelihood of an event. These are comparable to "if/then" constructions in English, as in "if you didn't want to go, then you should have said something" or "if I rest now, I'll have more energy later." French si clauses are made up of two parts: a condition (e.g. "if I rest now") and a result ("I'll have more energy later"). They come in three different forms, each expressing different likelihoods and employing different verb tenses and moods. Let's break them down one by one.
1. Si + present-tense verb
The first type of si clause describes a possible or likely event. It expresses what could or will probably happen if a present condition is met. When the "condition" part (si + verb) of the clause is in the present tense, the "result" part can be in the present, imperative, or future:
Si on surveille pas, elle les prend
If we don't watch, she takes them
et puis elle les fait tomber un par un.
and then makes them fall one by one.
Caption 23, Angers 7 - Un lama en plein appartement
Play Caption
Donc si vous pouvez éviter de sortir, évitez.
So if you can avoid going out, avoid it.
Caption 7, Alsace 20 - Météo des Maquilleurs
Play Caption
Même aujourd'hui, si on me fait chanter, je chanterai.
Even today, if you make me sing, I'll sing.
Caption 55, Actu Vingtième - Le Repas des anciens
Play Caption
2. Si + imperfect verb
The second type describes something that's contrary to the present situation or unlikely to happen. Here the si is followed by an imperfect verb and the "result" part of the clause requires the conditional:
Si on avait pas tant de bénévoles... cela serait pas possible.
If we didn't have so many volunteers... it wouldn't be possible.
Captions 34-35, Farmer François - Le stand de légumes
Play Caption
Je pourrais aller au cinéma avec toi si je n'étais pas malade.
I could go to the movies with you if I weren't sick.
As you can see from the above example, the "result" doesn't always have to follow the "condition"—it can just as easily be placed before it. So we could rewrite the "Farmer François" sentence as: Cela serait pas possible si on avait pas tant de bénévoles (it wouldn't be possible if we didn't have so many volunteers). As long as both parts of a si clause are in the right tense/mood, it doesn't matter which comes first.
3. Si + pluperfect verb
The final type of si clause is a lot like the second type, but a bit more complex. It describes something that's contrary to a past event—for instance, something you wish had happened or regret not having done. In other words, it expresses an impossibility. The pluperfect is paired with the past conditional here:
Si j'avais su, je serais venu avec deux chevaux.
If I had known, I would have come with two horses.
Caption 50, Il était une fois - Les découvreurs - 13. Stephenson
Play Caption
Hier j'aurais levé le bras
Yesterday I would have raised my arm
pour appeler le taxi si j'avais d'abord soigné mon épaule.
to hail the taxi if I had treated my shoulder first.
Captions 39-41, Le saviez-vous? - Le mode du conditionnel
Play Caption
To learn about some other meanings of si besides "if," check out this lesson. And if you have any suggestions for future lesson topics, feel free to tweet us @yabla or email us at newsletter@yabla.com.
As Patricia mentions in her recent video, the French conditional mood only comes in two tenses: present and past. While the present conditional expresses something you would do, the past conditional expresses something you would have done. We discussed the present conditional in our previous lesson, so now we'll focus on the past.
The past conditional is a compound tense, which means it's made up of multiple parts. Two parts, to be exact: an auxiliary verb (avoir or être) in the conditional, plus the past participle of the main verb. Here's an example of the verb pouvoir (to be able to) in the past conditional:
On aurait pu les cuire individuellement, mais euh, là ça va le faire.
We could've cooked them individually, but uh, here, this'll do it.
Caption 49, 4 Mains pour 1 Piano - Médaillon de Homard
Play Caption
Like most verbs, pouvoir combines with the auxiliary verb avoir (to have) in compound past tenses. But as Patricia explains in another video, some verbs combine with être (to be) in those instances, such as the verbs aller (to go) and naître (to be born):
Je serais allé à la plage mais il faisait trop froid.
I would have gone to the beach, but it was too cold.
L'histoire officielle dit que ce drapeau serait né
Official history says that this flag was supposedly born
sous la Révolution française de dix-sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf.
under the French Revolution of seventeen eighty-nine.
Captions 6-7, Le saviez-vous? - Histoire du drapeau français
Play Caption
The important thing to remember is that in the past tense, you only need to conjugate the auxiliary verb in the conditional, not the main verb (so you wouldn't say on aurait pourrait or je serais irais, for instance).
It's easy to confuse the past conditional with the pluperfect (or plus-que-parfait) tense, which is used to describe things that happened in the remote past. Both constructions contain an auxiliary verb followed by a past participle (in the pluperfect, the auxiliary verb is in the imperfect tense, not the conditional), and you'll often find both of them in sentences containing si (if) clauses:
Hier, j'aurais levé le bras
Yesterday, I would have raised my arm
pour appeler le taxi si j'avais d'abord soigné mon épaule.
to hail the taxi if I had treated my shoulder first.
Captions 39-41, Le saviez-vous? - Le mode du conditionnel
Play Caption
We'll talk about si clauses in further detail in a future lesson. In the meantime, you might want to check out the song Si by Zaz, which contains a good number of si clauses and verbs in the conditional.
In her latest lesson, Patricia introduces the conditional mood, used to describe hypothetical situations. Unlike the indicative mood, which refers to definite, certain actions or events, the conditional refers to anything indefinite or uncertain. The French conditional generally corresponds to "would" in English—"would go," "would say," "would run," etc.
Conjugating the conditional is fairly straightforward. You just take the infinitive form of the verb and add the ending -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, or -aient (though there are some exceptions to this rule). Let's take the verb parler (to talk) as an example:
je parlerais (I would talk) nous parlerions (we would talk)
tu parlerais (you [sing.] would talk) vous parleriez (you [pl.] would talk)
il/elle parlerait (he/she would talk) ils/elles parleraient (they would talk)
You may have noticed that these endings are the same as those used in the imperfect tense. In fact, you'll often see the conditional paired with the imperfect in si (if) clauses:
Que ferais-tu si tu gagnais à la loterie?
What would you do if you won the lottery?
Si j'avais soigné mon épaule,
If I had taken care of my shoulder,
je lèverais mon bras.
I would raise my arm.
Captions 14-15, Le saviez-vous? - Le mode du conditionnel
Play Caption
(J'avais soigné is actually a pluperfect construction, which Patricia reviews in another video.)
The conditional isn't only found in si clauses. You can also use it to express a request or a wish:
Pardon, excusez-moi,
Sorry, excuse me,
est-ce que vous pourriez m'aider à traverser la rue?
could you help me cross the street?
Caption 22, Cap 24 - Alessandro Di Sarno se met à nu !
Play Caption
Je voudrais juste une rose.
I would just like a rose.
Caption 11, Bande-annonce - La Belle et La Bête
Play Caption
As we discussed in a previous lesson, the conditional can also be used to express uncertainty or to report something you heard from someone else. In this case it's often translated with words like "apparently," "supposedly," "reportedly," etc.:
Le rire serait aussi bénéfique que le sport.
Laughter is apparently as good for you as sports.
Caption 16, Le Journal - Les effets bénéfiques du rire!
Play Caption
In our next lesson, we'll show you how to construct the conditional in the past tense. In the meantime, be sure to check out Patricia's video on the future tense, which has a similar conjugation pattern to the conditional. You wouldn't want to get them confused!
Spanish
German
Italian
Chinese
English
English 
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
