Irregular conditional verbs (tendría, haría...)

Irregular Conditional Stems

Regular verbs form the conditional tense by adding endings directly to the infinitive, but some common verbs use an irregular stem.

The conditional endings (-ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -ían) remain exactly the same. You only need to memorize the new stems to talk about what you would do:

InfinitiveIrregular StemExample (yo)
hacerhar-haría
tenertendr-tendría
poderpodr-podría
decirdir-diría
sabersabr-sabría
quererquerr-querría
salirsaldr-saldría
venirvendr-vendría
haberhabr-habría

Here are some of these irregular stems in action:

I would do the master's degree; however, it is very expensive.
Yo haría la maestría; sin embargo, es muy cara.
He would already have the doctorate today.
Él ya tendría el doctorado hoy.
With the scholarship, you could pay for the master's degree.
Con la beca, tú podrías pagar la maestría.

Hypothetical Scenarios

Use the conditional to describe what would happen if circumstances were different. Notice how verbs like saber, decir, and haber (which becomes habría, meaning "there would be") look in the wild:

The director would know the academic level of the faculty.
El director sabría el nivel académico de la facultad.
He would not say anything about the academic exchange.
Él no diría nada sobre el intercambio académico.
There would be an interesting seminar; however, no one would be able to attend.
Habría un seminario interesante; sin embargo, nadie podría asistir.
We would do the doctorate, but we would not have time.
Nosotros haríamos el doctorado, pero no tendríamos tiempo.