Word
Si tu voyais un extraterrestre, ce serait un animal inconnu.
Meaning
If you saw an alien, it would be an unknown animal.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Si tu voyais un extraterrestre, ce serait un animal inconnu.
être
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
tu
you (informal singular)
ce
it / this (with être)
Questions & Answers about Si tu voyais un extraterrestre, ce serait un animal inconnu.
Why does this sentence use the imperfect tense (voyais) instead of the conditional right after si?
In French, just like in English, we don't put the conditional tense right after the word si (if). For a hypothetical situation (the second conditional), the verb immediately following si must be in the imperfect tense (voyais). The conditional tense is reserved for the result part of the sentence (ce serait).
Why do we use ce serait instead of il serait for 'it would be'?
Because the verb être (to be) is followed by a noun phrase that includes an article (un animal inconnu). The classic rule that forces you to use c'est instead of il est before a determiner plus a noun applies across all tenses, so it becomes ce serait in the conditional.
How do you form the conditional verb serait?
To form the conditional, you typically take the future stem of a verb and add the imperfect endings. The verb être is irregular, so its conditional stem is ser-. We then add the third-person singular imperfect ending -ait to match the pronoun ce, giving us serait.
Why is the adjective inconnu placed after animal?