The conditionnel is one of the most useful moods in French and one of the easiest to underuse. English speakers tend to reach for it only when translating "would," but native French speakers use it many times a day for jobs that have no neat single-word equivalent in English: softening a request to a clerk, suggesting that a friend should rest, reporting what a politician supposedly said, walking through a hypothetical scenario with a colleague. If you stay in the indicative — je veux, tu dois, il est — French listeners hear an adult speaking like an impatient child. The conditionnel is the gear shift that takes your French out of beginner territory and into the everyday register of polite, thoughtful, grown-up speech.
This page is the map. It introduces the six jobs the conditionnel does, shows the two forms (present and past), and points to the dedicated subpages for the harder topics. By the end, you should know the full functional landscape of the mood, even if you have not yet drilled the conjugations.
What is a "mood," and why is the conditionnel one?
In French grammar, a mood marks the speaker's stance toward what they are saying — whether they are stating a fact (indicative), giving an order (impératif), expressing doubt or emotion (subjonctif), or framing the action as hypothetical / dependent on a condition (conditionnel). The conditionnel is the mood of what would be, what could be, and what someone said would be — actions that exist in the conditional realm of hypotheses, polite requests, and reported futures rather than in the realm of established fact.
This is not a tense in the strict sense. The conditionnel can refer to the present (je voudrais un café — right now), to the past (il a dit qu'il viendrait — yesterday's reported future), or to a hypothetical timeline that never happened. What unifies the uses is the stance: the speaker is stepping back from direct assertion.
The six functions of the conditionnel
1. Polite requests and offers
The single most frequent use in spoken French. The indicative is direct, sometimes blunt; the conditionnel softens the request into something a polite adult would say.
Je voudrais un café, s'il vous plaît.
I'd like a coffee, please. (Restaurant — direct 'je veux un café' would sound rude.)
Pourriez-vous m'aider à porter ce carton ?
Could you help me carry this box? (More polite than 'pouvez-vous m'aider'.)
Tu pourrais me prêter ton chargeur deux minutes ?
Could you lend me your charger for two minutes?
In adult-to-adult interactions — cafés, shops, the office, asking favors of friends — je voudrais and pourriez-vous are conversational defaults. See Voudrais, Pourrais, Devrais, Aimerais: The Politeness Conditionals for the full set.
2. Hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals (Type 2)
The textbook use: pairing the conditionnel présent with a si-clause in the imparfait to express what would happen under a hypothetical condition.
Si j'avais le temps, je viendrais avec toi.
If I had time, I'd come with you. (But I don't have time.)
Si tu étudiais un peu plus, tu réussirais sans problème.
If you studied a little more, you'd pass without any trouble.
Si on habitait à Paris, on irait au théâtre tous les week-ends.
If we lived in Paris, we'd go to the theater every weekend.
The conditionnel always sits in the main clause, never inside the si-clause. The pairing is fixed: si + imparfait, conditionnel in the consequence. See Conditionnel in Si-Clauses for the full system, and Si with Present, Not Future for the related rule that catches every English speaker.
3. Past hypothetical (with the conditionnel passé, Type 3)
When the hypothesis is about something that didn't happen in the past, the verbs shift up one tense each: the si-clause moves to the plus-que-parfait, and the main clause moves to the conditionnel passé.
Si tu étais venu hier, j'aurais été content de te voir.
If you'd come yesterday, I'd have been happy to see you. (You didn't come.)
Si j'avais étudié pour l'examen, je l'aurais réussi.
If I had studied for the exam, I'd have passed it. (I didn't study.)
Si on avait quitté la maison plus tôt, on n'aurait pas raté l'avion.
If we'd left the house earlier, we wouldn't have missed the plane.
The conditionnel passé is built from the conditionnel of avoir or être plus the past participle (j'aurais fait, je serais venu). It is the explicit "would have" of past regrets and counterfactuals.
4. Future-in-the-past (reported speech)
When you report what someone said about the future, French shifts the futur back to the conditionnel — exactly the way English shifts "will" to "would."
| Direct speech | Reported speech |
|---|---|
| « Je viendrai demain. » | Il a dit qu'il viendrait le lendemain. |
| « Nous serons à l'heure. » | Ils ont promis qu'ils seraient à l'heure. |
| « Je t'appellerai. » | Elle m'a dit qu'elle m'appellerait. |
Il a dit qu'il viendrait, mais on ne l'a pas vu.
He said he'd come, but we didn't see him.
Marie m'a promis qu'elle me rendrait le livre vendredi.
Marie promised me she'd give the book back to me on Friday.
Le médecin nous a expliqué que les résultats arriveraient dans une semaine.
The doctor explained to us that the results would arrive in a week.
This use is not hypothetical at all. It just marks that the future-pointing speech happened in the past. The technical name is the futur dans le passé — "future-in-the-past."
5. Journalistic conditional (unverified information)
This is the use English-speaking learners almost never discover on their own, and it is everywhere in French news writing. When a journalist reports information they cannot verify firsthand — a leak, an allegation, an unconfirmed report — they shift the verb into the conditionnel as a built-in hedge.
Le président serait malade selon plusieurs sources internes.
The president is reportedly ill, according to several internal sources.
Le suspect aurait quitté le pays avant l'enquête.
The suspect allegedly left the country before the investigation.
L'accord serait signé d'ici la fin du mois.
The agreement is reportedly to be signed by the end of the month.
The English equivalents — "reportedly," "allegedly," "is said to" — are heavy, lexical hedges. French folds the same hedge into the morphology of the verb itself. Once you start reading Le Monde or Le Figaro, you will see this every paragraph; it is one of the surest signs of professional French journalism.
6. Suggestion and advice
A close cousin of the polite request: the conditionnel of devoir (tu devrais, vous devriez) and pouvoir (tu pourrais) softens what would otherwise be a command into a piece of advice.
Tu devrais te coucher tôt ce soir, tu as l'air épuisé.
You should go to bed early tonight, you look exhausted.
Vous pourriez essayer la pharmacie de la rue Saint-Antoine, ils ont souvent ce genre de produit.
You could try the pharmacy on rue Saint-Antoine — they often have that kind of thing.
On ferait mieux de partir maintenant si on veut éviter les bouchons.
We'd better leave now if we want to avoid the traffic.
The contrast with the indicative is sharp: tu dois te coucher tôt ("you must go to bed early") sounds like a parent ordering a child; tu devrais te coucher tôt sounds like a concerned friend giving advice. In adult speech, the conditionnel is almost always the right register.
The two forms: conditionnel présent and conditionnel passé
The conditionnel has just two forms — a "present" tense (for present and future hypotheticals, polite requests, and future-in-the-past) and a "past" tense (for past counterfactuals).
Conditionnel présent
Built from the futur stem plus the imparfait endings:
futur stem + -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient
This is the elegant trick of French morphology: the conditionnel uses the same stem as the futur (so parler gives je parler-, aller gives j'ir-, avoir gives j'aur-), but takes the endings of the imparfait. If you already know the futur stems and the imparfait endings, the conditionnel comes free. See Conditionnel: Formation for the full paradigms.
| Person | parler | finir | vendre | être | avoir | aller |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| je | parlerais | finirais | vendrais | serais | aurais | irais |
| tu | parlerais | finirais | vendrais | serais | aurais | irais |
| il / elle | parlerait | finirait | vendrait | serait | aurait | irait |
| nous | parlerions | finirions | vendrions | serions | aurions | irions |
| vous | parleriez | finiriez | vendriez | seriez | auriez | iriez |
| ils / elles | parleraient | finiraient | vendraient | seraient | auraient | iraient |
Conditionnel passé
Built from the conditionnel présent of avoir or être + the past participle:
aurais / serais + past participle
| Auxiliary | Example | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| avoir-verbs | j'aurais fait | I would have done |
| avoir-verbs | tu aurais vu | you would have seen |
| être-verbs | je serais venu(e) | I would have come |
| être-verbs | elle serait partie | she would have left |
| pronominal | je me serais reposé(e) | I would have rested |
The auxiliary choice (avoir vs. être) follows the same rules as in the passé composé. Être takes pronominal verbs and the dozen or so verbs of motion / change of state (aller, venir, partir, arriver, naître, mourir, rester, tomber, monter, descendre, entrer, sortir, etc.).
J'aurais aimé te voir hier soir.
I would have liked to see you last night.
Elle serait venue si elle avait su.
She would have come if she'd known.
English coverage: would, should, could
Most of the conditionnel maps onto English would, but two close cousins also need the conditionnel:
| English modal | French verb in conditionnel | Use |
|---|---|---|
| would | most verbs in conditionnel | I would go → j'irais |
| should | devoir in conditionnel | You should rest → tu devrais te reposer |
| could (polite) | pouvoir in conditionnel | Could you help me? → pourriez-vous m'aider ? |
| would like | vouloir / aimer in conditionnel | I'd like → je voudrais / j'aimerais |
| would know | savoir in conditionnel (literary) | I wouldn't know → je ne saurais (formal) |
So when an English speaker says "should," "could," or "would like," the French verb is in the conditionnel — but the lexical verb is devoir, pouvoir, or vouloir / aimer respectively. There is no separate French word for "should" or "could"; those English modals correspond to the conditionnel forms of specific verbs.
Tu devrais lui en parler franchement.
You should talk to him about it openly.
On pourrait aller au marché demain matin.
We could go to the market tomorrow morning.
J'aimerais bien y passer une semaine.
I'd really like to spend a week there.
A subtler use: tentative attribution
Beyond the journalistic hedge, the conditionnel marks gentler kinds of distancing — tentative claims, polite contradictions, hedged quotations.
Selon le rapport, le coût total dépasserait les deux millions d'euros.
According to the report, the total cost would exceed two million euros.
On dirait qu'il pleut.
It looks like it's raining. (Literally 'one would say' — a hedged observation.)
J'aurais cru qu'elle serait là, mais apparemment non.
I would have thought she'd be here, but apparently not.
The construction on dirait ("it looks like / it seems") is one of the most idiomatic conditionnel uses in spoken French — pure hedging, baked into a fixed phrase.
How the conditionnel is and isn't a tense
Some grammarians classify the conditionnel as a separate mood (alongside indicative, subjunctive, imperative); others treat it as a tense of the indicative (specifically, a future-in-the-past). Both views have merit and you will encounter both in reference works. Modern French grammars increasingly treat it as a mood, on the grounds that it carries modal meaning (hypothesis, politeness, hedge) much more often than purely temporal meaning. Either way, the forms and uses are the same; only the label changes.
Practically, the boundary between "tense" and "mood" doesn't matter for your daily French. What matters is recognizing the six functions on this page and pairing the right form with the right job.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Reaching for the indicative when politeness calls for the conditionnel.
❌ Je veux un croissant et un café, s'il vous plaît.
Possible but blunt — sounds like an order rather than a polite request.
✅ Je voudrais un croissant et un café, s'il vous plaît.
I'd like a croissant and a coffee, please.
Mistake 2: Putting the conditionnel inside the si-clause.
❌ Si j'aurais le temps, je viendrais.
Wrong: si never takes the conditionnel. Si pairs with the imparfait in Type 2.
✅ Si j'avais le temps, je viendrais.
If I had time, I'd come.
Mistake 3: Confusing the futur and the conditionnel forms in writing.
❌ Demain, je serais à Paris.
If you mean a plain future statement, this is wrong — serais is conditional. The futur is je serai.
✅ Demain, je serai à Paris.
Tomorrow I'll be in Paris.
Mistake 4: Skipping the conditionnel in reported speech.
❌ Il a dit qu'il viendra demain.
Wrong tense match — after a past reporting verb (a dit), the future shifts to the conditionnel.
✅ Il a dit qu'il viendrait le lendemain.
He said he would come the next day.
Mistake 5: Translating "should" and "could" with imaginary verbs instead of devoir / pouvoir in the conditionnel.
❌ Tu shouldrais étudier.
There is no such word. 'Should' is the conditionnel of devoir.
✅ Tu devrais étudier.
You should study.
Key takeaways
- The conditionnel is a mood, not just a tense. It marks polite, hypothetical, hedged, or reported speech.
- Six core functions: polite requests, Type 2 hypotheticals, Type 3 past counterfactuals, future-in-the-past in reported speech, journalistic hedge, and advice / suggestion.
- Form: futur stem + imparfait endings (je parler-
- -ais → je parlerais).
- Conditionnel passé: aurais / serais
- past participle, for past counterfactuals and missed possibilities.
- English "would," "should," "could," and "would like" all map onto the conditionnel — but you choose the lexical verb (aller, devoir, pouvoir, vouloir, aimer) before applying the conditionnel endings.
- Native French speakers use the conditionnel many times a day; staying in the indicative makes you sound brusque or childish.
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Start learning French→Related Topics
- Le Conditionnel Présent: Formation et TerminaisonsA2 — How to build the conditionnel for any French verb — futur stem plus imparfait endings. The rule is one line; the pronunciation distinction with the futur (je serai vs je serais) is the trap.
- Voudrais, Pourrais, Devrais, Aimerais: The Politeness ConditionalsA2 — The five conditionnel forms that mark the difference between sounding like a polite adult and sounding like a brusque tourist — what each one does, when to use it, and why bare 'je veux' will get you mocked.
- Le Conditionnel in Si-Clauses: Type 2, Type 3, and Mixed ConditionalsB1 — How the conditionnel pairs with the imparfait and plus-que-parfait to express counterfactual hypotheses about the present and the past — plus the mixed pattern, the universal English-speaker error to avoid, and the schoolyard rhyme that locks the rule in.
- L'Imparfait in Si-Clauses: Hypotheticals, Suggestions, and WishesB1 — How the imparfait pairs with the conditional to express counterfactual hypotheses, and how 'si + imparfait' alone proposes plans, regrets, and wishes.
- Never Use the Futur After Si: The Present-Tense Rule for ConditionalsB1 — The single rule that catches every English speaker: in real-condition sentences (Si tu viens, je serai content), the si-clause takes the present, never the futur. Plus the three-tier conditional system, the whether-exception, and a French mnemonic to lock it in.
- Le Futur: OverviewA1 — French has two main futures — the synthetic futur simple (je parlerai) and the analytic futur proche (je vais parler) — plus the futur antérieur (j'aurai parlé) for completed future actions. This page maps how each is built, when each is used, and how they divide up the future-time space.