It’s Professor Dave, let’s look at the present conditional tense.
In Italian, there is something called the conditional mood, or condizionale, and it
will be used in the form of two tenses, the present conditional and the past conditional.
These can both be used in main clauses or secondary clauses.
Right now let’s take a look at the present conditional.
This is a tense that is used to express uncertainty, or possibility, in the present.
It describes an action which would only happen if a certain condition were also taking place.
This means that more often than not, the action using the conditional tense is not happening.
This can be most closely compared to the English phrase “I would”.
Now there is some good news, the stem for conditional is the same as the stem for the
future tense, which we already learned, so if you need to review that go ahead and view
that tutorial again right now, otherwise let’s take a look at the present conditional on
three verbs, one from each conjugation.
For the first conjugation, let’s use ballare.
For this tense we must drop the RE ending, and we change the A into an E, as we did for
the future tense.
First person singular will be: Io ballerei.
This means “I would dance”, as in, I would dance if I liked the music, or, I would dance
if I weren’t so tired.
With the purpose of this tense better understood, let’s continue through the conjugation.
Be sure to note the double M here, which will be the case for all examples of first person
plural in this tense.
If you do not use the double M, you will actually be using the future tense, which implies that
the action will actually happen.
This is the same as second person singular except it ends in E instead of I.
Again, just like third person singular, but with an added RO.
Now for the second conjugation, let’s use credere, and we will see that all of the endings
are exactly the same as for the first conjugation.
All we need to do is drop the RE ending.
And lastly, for the third conjugation, let’s use finire.
The base will be fini.
Just a couple things to be aware of.
Verbs ending in CARE, GARE, CIARE, and GIARE will undergo the same spelling modifications
as in the present tense.
Verbs that are irregular in the future tense will also be irregular in the conditional tense.
Some common first person singular forms will be:
As we learned before when going over how to order at an Italian restaurant, conditional
is commonly used to express a wish or a polite request.
For example, you can use this tense to tell the waiter what you would like.
This literally means “I would like an ice cream”, but in Italian is interpreted more
closely as “May I have an ice cream.”
This tense is also used to express a polite request rather than a demand, which would
require the imperative.
At other times, the present conditional can express doubt, or a subjective opinion.
This tense can also be used to express the consequence of a hypothetical situation, even
without an IF clause.
And lastly, we can use this tense to convey information that is speculative, or not completely confirmed.
If the fact were confirmed, then either the present or future tense would be used.
Now let’s practice using the present conditional tense.
We will propose some different scenarios, and you can try to come up with a prediction
regarding what you would do in each situation, using a verb in the present conditional tense.
That will do it for the present conditional tense, so let’s check comprehension.