Speculating about the past
Just as you can use the future tense to guess what someone is doing right now, you can use the conditional tense to guess what they were doing in the past. To speculate about an ongoing action during a specific past timeframe, use the Conditional Continuous.
To form this tense, conjugate estar in the conditional (estaría, estarías, estaría, estaríamos, estaríais, estarían) and add a gerund (an -ando or -iendo verb). In English, this translates to what someone "was probably" or "must have been" doing.
| I think the suspect was probably snooping to find out his whereabouts. | Creo que el sospechoso estaría fisgoneando para averiguar su paradero. |
| They were probably snooping in the office when the incident happened. | Ellas estarían fisgoneando en la oficina cuando ocurrió el incidente. |
You will often see this tense paired with past time markers or descriptions of behavior to paint a picture of what was likely happening behind the scenes.
| The boss was probably acting suspiciously. | La jefa estaría actuando sospechosamente. |
| Last night, they were probably muttering about the plot. | Anoche estarían murmurando sobre el complot. |
| Would they have been looking for a cover because of the inspector's suspicion? | ¿Estarían buscando una tapadera por la sospecha del inspector? |
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