Conditional Perfect - Other Languages

Other Languages

French expresses past counterfactual conditional sentences in exactly the same way as English does: the if clause uses the had + past participle (pluperfect) form, while the then clause uses the would have + past participle form, where the equivalent of would have is the conditional of the auxiliary (avoir or être) used in all perfect constructions for the verb in question. Example:

• Si on l'avait su, on aurait pu l'empêcher.

"If we had known it, we would have been able to prevent it."

Spanish forms the conditional perfect on similar principles, e.g. yo te habría dicho todo ("I would have told you everything").

For certain other languages, see conditional mood.