Le conditionnel présent : politesse, hypothèse, information non confirmée

Unité GR-27 · campagne 13 · je voudrais, je voyagerais, il serait malade.

Formation first, because it is the easy half: take the future stem (the infinitive, minus the final -e for -re verbs) and add the imparfait endings -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient. Irregular future stems carry over unchanged: pouvoir → pourr-, vouloir → voudr-, être → ser-, avoir → aur-, faire → fer-.

Russian builds all of this with one particle — бы — so the real work is recognising the three French jobs:

1. Politeness. The conditional softens a request: Je voudrais un café. Pourriez-vous fermer la fenêtre ? Plain je veux / pouvez-vous sounds abrupt in a shop or an email; the conditional is the neutral polite register, not an optional flourish.
2. Hypothesis. The B2 workhorse pattern: si + imparfait → conditional. Si j'avais plus de temps, je voyagerais plus souvent. À ta place, j'accepterais. Keep the conditional out of the si-clause itself — ~~si j'aurais~~ is the error every examiner hunts.
3. Unconfirmed information. The journalistic conditional reports a fact without vouching for it: Selon la presse, l'accord serait signé demain. Le ministre démissionnerait. Russian needs a word like якобы or по сообщениям; French folds the reservation into the verb itself. Expect this constantly in DELF reading passages.

One spelling-ear warning: je voyagerai (future) and je voyagerais (conditional) differ only in a final letter most speakers do not pronounce distinctly — in dictation, let the si-clause or the politeness context decide. The practice covers all three jobs plus formation.

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