Learn Spanish (Latin America): Él no diría nada sobre el intercambio académico. - He would not say anything about the academic exchange.

The verb decir (to say) has an irregular stem in the conditional tense. Instead of attaching the ending to the full infinitive, you use the special stem dir- and add the conditional ending -ía, making diría (he would say).

Why does the sentence use both no and nada to mean 'would not say anything'?

Spanish requires a double negative when the negative word comes after the verb. Because nada (nothing/anything) is after diría, you must place no before the verb. While it translates literally as "He would not say nothing," it means "He would not say anything" in natural English.

Could I use de instead of sobre to mean 'about'?

Yes, you could say del intercambio. Both sobre and de can mean "about." Sobre is often used to mean "on the topic of" or "concerning," making it perfectly clear that the exchange is the subject being discussed.

Why does académico have an accent mark?

The word académico has its natural voice stress on the third-to-last syllable (a-ca-dé-mi-co). Words stressed on this syllable (known as esdrújulas) always require a written accent mark in Spanish.