Lesson 43: I would, I should

We saw in the last lesson how 'I could' was a little irregular because of its common use. The other verb with irregularity is also one that is widely used - 'haber'

I would have using 'haber'

Again to follow the standard rule and find "I would have" we would take off the 'er' and add 'ería' to get 'habería' but just as over time 'podería' lost its 'e' to become 'podría' ("I would be able / I could") so 'habería' also lost its 'e' to become 'habría' ("I would have").

Spanish	English
Habría	I/he/she/it/you (formal) would have

So now we can make conditional sentences like "I would have gone". The first step is to remember the rule for any verb (except irregulars!) that comes after 'haber':

For 'ar' verbs take off the 'ar' and add 'ado'
For 'er' and 'ir' verbs take off the 'er'/'ir' and add 'ido'

In the case of "to go", 'ir' is the whole verb but we take off the 'ir' anyway, add the 'ido' and get 'ido'! - "gone".

Spanish	English
Habría ido	I/he/she/it/you (formal) would have gone
Habriamos comido	We would have eaten
Habriamos podido ir	We would have been able to go
Habrían podido comer	They would have been able to eat
Habrían venido a comer	They would have come to eat

Note that 'a' in the last phrase because "to come" is a verb of motion so we always add an extra 'a' (meaning "to") when it is connecting to another to form verb to reflect that.

I would have liked

Now if 'gustar' is not really "to like" but "to be pleasing" then we need to think through how we say "I would have liked it" as "It would have pleased to me".

Spanish	English
Me habría gustado	It would have pleased me / I would have liked it
Nos habría gustado	It would have pleased us / We would have liked it
Nos habrían gustado	They would have pleased us / We would have liked them

The key here is always to start with main verb - "It would have" / "They would have" - and build out from there.

Should

Getting "should" is not that obvious ... until we think about it! In English "I should" comes from "I must" and we know "must" already - 'deber' - from "debt", "I owe to ...".

Unlike English, in Spanish there is no strange change.

Spanish	English
Debería	I/he/she/it/you (formal) should
Deberías venir a mi casa	You should come to my house
Deberías venir a mi casa a comer	You should come to my house to eat

Note once again we have this 'a' because 'venir' is a verb of motion and even though the two verbs - 'venir' and 'comer' are interrupted by 'a mi casa' it is still seen as two verbs (in their to form) next to each other and the first one is a verb of motion.

Its also important to remember that word order can change just as it does in English - "You should come to my house to eat", "You should come to eat at my house" - without changing the meaning.

Spanish	English
Deberías venir a comer a mi casa	You should come to eat at my house

When creating sentences or coming across sentences its important to carry out your own mental exercise of rearranging word orders so in real life situations you are not thrown just because you here a word order that was not in the text book!

OK - let's expand 'should'

Spanish	English
Deberiamos	We should
Deberiamos hablar	We should speak
Deberiamos hablarlo	We should speak about it
Deberiamos hablarle	We should speak to him
Deberiamos hablarles	We should speak to them
Deberiamos hablar con él	We should speak with him
Deberiamos hablar con ella	We should speak with her

This second form 'Deberiamos hablar con ella' takes out the ambiguity that we get with 'Demeriamos hablarle' which could refer to him, her or you (formal).

would give

We've already covered the verb "to give" and as we know the rule for changing it to 'would' is to add 'ía' we know "would give".

Spanish	English
Daría	I would give
Darían	They / you guys would give
Me darían	They / you guys would give me
Me lo darían	They / you guys would give me it

And there in that last phrase we see the "Medlody" rule again - 'Me lo dí' means "I gave myself" but it sounds like "Melody" and that's a great way to remember the order of 'me' and 'lo'.

Lesson 44: This, that and these and those