Lesson 41: Will, would and itself

We've covered the future tense in a number of ways. Time for a quick recap and then how to say 'I would' (conditional) and when you need to use 'itself' with some verbs

Ways to talk about the future - recap

In previous lessons we've talked about three ways to talk about the future

Present tense using 'to go' - "I am going to dance"
Present tense with a future context - "I am dancing tomorow"
Using 'will' - "I will dance"

Spanish	English
Vamos a bailar	We are going to dance
Vamos a bailar más tarde	We are going to dance later
Bailamos más tarde	We are dancing later
Bailaremos	We will dance

Using the present tense options is more popular in Spanish than using "will" but its there and you might hear it or want to use it from time to time to emphasize a point.

Would

But another popular way to talk about the future (in any language) is to use "would" and it is surprisingly easy in Spanish.

To get "would" add 'ía' to the end of the to form of the verb for I/he/she/it/you (formal).

Spanish	English
Bailaría	I/he/she/you (formal) would dance

The remaining forms follow the Spanish patterns - 'amos' for we, 'an' for they and 'as' for you informal:

Spanish	English
Bailaríamos	I/he/she/you (formal) would dance
Bailarían	They / you guys would dance
Bailarías	You (informal) would dance

Now its worth holding up here for a second and noticing the common characteristics of "will" and "would":

All verbs - 'ar', 'er' and 'ir' are treated the same
They both add thing onto the 'to form' - this is really important because we will come across the 'ía' sound again - ('bialía' means "I used to dance").
They both push the accent to the end of the verb - or as you can imagine it pushing the accent into the future.

Spanish	English
Ir	To go
Iría	I/he/she/it/you (formal) would go
No iría	She wouldn't go
Comería	I would eat
Comería pero no tengo tiempo	I would eat but I don't have time

Adding the concept of 'itself'

We've talked a number of times about reflexive verbs - verbs where you are doing something to yourself - like when we say "sit yourself down". We don't need the "yourself" but in English but we do need it in Spanish.

We've also talked about how to find verbs even if we don't know them - for example "to transform":

Is there a 'tion' version in English? Yes - "transformation"
So there is a Spanish version - 'transformación'
Take off the 'ción and add 'ar to get 'transformar - "to transform"

"Transform" is one of these reflexive verbs and the clue is in thinking if it is possible to be reflexive in English - "It transformed itself into a flower". Again we didn't need the "itself" but the fact that we could put it in there tells us it is probably a reflexive verb in Spanish.

Spanish	English
Transformaría	It would transform (something else)
Transformaría la situación	It would transform the situation
Se transformaría	It would get transformed

One important point here with reflexive verbs is that we are not saying it is doing the action. It may be getting "transformed" but that does not mean it is the thing that is doing the transforming.

Let's think about that with a new verb "to contaminate". To find the Spanish verb just go through the steps above because we know we have "Contamination" in English.

Spanish	English
Contamina	It contaminates (other things)
Se contamina	It gets contaminated
Se contaminaría	It would get contaminated

I would imagine

Now we know how to use "would" and we know how to find verbs if the English has a "tion" version we actually have everything we need to get to that very common of phrases "I would imagine".

Spanish	English
Me imaginaria	I would imagine

In this particular case the 'me' for myself is optional just as it is in English - "I would imagine myself that ...".

So let's try this with a mega sentence - "I would imagine that he doesn't want to go" - by, as always, breaking it down.

I would imagine - 'Me imaginaria'
that - 'que'
he doesn't want - 'no quiere'
to go - 'ir'

Spanish	English
Me imaginaria que no quiere ir	I would imagine that he doesn't want to go

Lesson 42: To like, I like, I would like, I could