Ask politely, give advice, and say what you'd do — with -ía endings, out loud.
Spanish says would with the conditional tense: add -ía endings to the full infinitive — hablaría, comería, viviría — and the endings are the same for -ar, -er and -ir verbs. Don't confuse it with the imperfect: the conditional keeps the infinitive's r (comería, I would eat), the imperfect drops it (comía, I used to eat). The real payoff is politeness: me gustaría un café where quiero sounds blunt, ¿podría ayudarme? where ¿puede? sounds flat, and deberías estudiar más for gentle advice. A dozen common verbs use irregular stems — haría, tendría, diría, saldría — the same stems as the future tense.
Below: the phrases the conditional unlocks, the slips that give learners away, and a way to practise it in a real spoken exchange — no conjugation drills, no fill-in-the-blanks.
Say this
Regional Spanish
Textbooks teach one word. Locals use several — pick your region's and stay consistent.
Watch out
The part no drill site can do
Carla
Your grammar teacher for this pack
In the I Wish lessons there's nothing to memorise from a table — you talk, and Carla keeps setting up moments where only the conditional fits. She plays the polite restaurant beat: order with me gustaría and ask ¿podría traerme la cuenta?. She brings you a problem and you hand back advice with deberías dormir más, deberías hablar con ella. Then she asks what you'd do with a free weekend, and you reach for viajaría, iría, comería — out loud, until would stops needing a second of thought.
Blank mid-sentence and nothing bad happens — she waits. That's the practice, without unnecessary judgement.
Quick answers
Take the full infinitive and add the -ía endings: hablaría, hablarías, hablaríamos, hablarían. The same endings work for every regular verb — comería, viviría — so one pattern covers thousands of verbs.
Comería is conditional (I would eat); comía is imperfect (I used to eat). The tell is the infinitive's r: the conditional keeps it (comer-ía), the imperfect drops it (com-ía).
Yes — me gustaría un café, por favor is the gracious version of quiero un café. Use it for requests and bookings: me gustaría reservar una mesa para dos. Quisiera… is equally polite.
Podría = could, for polite requests and suggestions: ¿Podría hablar más despacio? Debería = should, for advice: Deberías estudiar más para el examen.
About twelve common verbs change their stem — the same stems as the irregular future: haría (hacer), tendría (tener), podría (poder), diría (decir), saldría (salir), vendría (venir). So it's diría, never deciría.