Present French Conditional – Could, Should, Would

Scroll down to watch my video lesson on the French present conditional – could, should, would. You can download a free PDF of this lesson guide in my private French Grammar Library.

Present French Conditional – Could, Should, Would

The present French conditional is used to express COULD – SHOULD – WOULD . Just like in English, using the conditional tense means that something is only going to happen if a certain condition is met.

WOULD do something	Use the MAIN VERB in the conditional Si j’étais en France, J’APPRENDRAIS le français. If I were in France, I would learn French.
COULD do something	Use the verb POUVOIR in the conditional + infinitive Si j’étais en France, JE POURRAIS apprendre le français. If I were in France, I could learn French.
SHOULD do something	Use the verb DEVOIR in the conditional + infinitive JE DEVRAIS apprendre le français. I should learn French.

To form the conditional of regular verbs, use the infinitive of the verb as your stem, and add the imperfect endings. There are some irregular conditional stems you’ll need to learn. They’re exactly the same as the irregular stems for the futur simple tense (see chart below).

je + stem + ais	nous + stem + ions
tu + stem + ais	vous + stem + iez
il / elle / on + stem + ait	ils / elles + stem + aient

Common verbs with irregular conditional stems

infinitive	stem	future	translation
aller	ir	j’irais	I would go
avoir	aur-	j’aurais	I would have
courir	courr-	je courrais	I would run
devoir	devr-	je devrais	I should
envoyer	enverr-	j’enverrais	I would send
être	ser-	je serais	I would be
faire	fer-	je ferais	I would do / I would make
falloir	faudr-	il faudrait	It would be necessary
mourir	mourr-	je mourrais	I would die
obtenir	obtiendr-	j’obtiendrais	I would obtain
pleuvoir	pleuvr-	il pleuvrait	It would rain
pouvoir	pourr-	je pourrais	I would be able to
recevoir	recevr-	je recevrais	I would receive
savoir	saur-	je saurais	I would know
tenir	tiendr-	je tiendrais	I would hold
venir	viendr-	je viendrais	I would come
voir	verr-	je verrais	I would see
vouloir	voudr-	je voudrais	I would want