Word
Si ese cómplice tan torpe hubiera esquivado el láser, la alarma no habría sonado.
Meaning
If that clumsy accomplice had dodged the laser, the alarm wouldn't have gone off.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Si ese cómplice tan torpe hubiera esquivado el láser, la alarma no habría sonado.
no
no / not
ese
that (m.sg., also esa, esos, esas, eso)
si
if
tan
as / so (degree)
Questions & Answers about Si ese cómplice tan torpe hubiera esquivado el láser, la alarma no habría sonado.
Why do we use hubiera esquivado right after si instead of a conditional tense?
In Spanish, the word si (if) is almost never followed by a conditional tense. For impossible past situations (the third conditional), the 'if' clause must use the past perfect subjunctive (hubiera esquivado), while the conditional perfect (habría sonado) goes in the result clause.
Could I use hubiese esquivado instead of hubiera esquivado?
Yes! The past subjunctive has two sets of endings: -ra and -se. They mean exactly the same thing. Hubiera is more common overall, but hubiese is perfectly correct and you will hear both.
Is it possible to use hubiera sonado instead of habría sonado in the second half of the sentence?
Yes, this is a very common shortcut! In spoken Spanish, especially in Spain, native speakers frequently replace the conditional perfect (habría sonado) with the -ra form of the past perfect subjunctive (hubiera sonado) in the result clause of these 'impossible past' sentences.