Hello everyone,
and welcome back to the German is Easy – Grammar Course, the course that Einstein mentioned in one of his most famous quotes…
“Nothing moves faster than light. But your progress
when you take the German is Easy course comes pretty close.”
Okay, he didn’t say that.
But I’m pretty sure he would have, had he not destroyed the time machine he had built after Schrödinger’s cat had told him what would happen if he didn’t
( find out what Einstein saw, here).
Now you’re probably like “Ugh… Emanuel is using his intro for shit posting again.” but NO! Not this time. This intro was super on topic because today, we’ll start our mini series about
Conditional in German
What I mean by that are all those phrasing like I would…, If I were you… or I could have had. Super important, useful stuff that we use every day and yet, learners are making lots of mistakes there; even at an advanced level. Which is weird, because the rules are actually pretty simple and straight forward.
In this mini series, we’ll go over all you need to know. And today, we’ll start with a little overview over the topic.
So would you have been ready to must have… uhmm… had to could have had … uh… been jumped in…. erm… or something?
Great :)
Two things I want to say right off the bat.
Number 1:
Conditional is NOT the “official” name. That would be Konjunktiv II (called subjunctive in English, most of the time), not to be confused with Konjunktiv I which is something entirely different.
But I’m not going to use them because I don’t think they’re helpful. They’re not descriptive and things actually get quite confusing once you look more closely. If you want, I can give you a more detailed explanation in the comments about why I am not using them. Conditional isn’t perfect either, but I think it is at least intuitive and so if you’re familiar with the “normal” terms, please just roll with me.
Keep in mind that this is not meant to be a linguistic analysis. It is a guide for a learner and as such, it doesn’t technically have to be “scientific” – it just needs to work.
Number 2:
Though there are seemingly a lot of similarities between German and English, I will pretty much NEVER compare the two languages. And neither should you – it is a recipe for disaster. Because even though the forms are basically the same in the languages, the usage is vastly different. Like… yes, would and würde are basically soul-brothers but don’t let that fool you into thinking that you can always translate would to würde. 50% of the time that will result in an un-salvageable, unintelligible mess.
It’s really important that we think of the German Conditional as its own thing and learn to build it in German – not take an English sentence and translate the parts. Of course, I will give you the English translations for things but whenever the urge comes to compare… just sit with it and then let it go :).
Cool. And now let’s dive right in with a little overview of what we’re actually talking about
What is “Conditional” in Grammar
In the intro I already said that it’s the could-should-would-stuff.
The name Conditional is based on the fact that the number one use for this specific marking are conditional statements.
- I would give you a cookie if I had one.
But not every conditional statement HAS to have a conditional marking.
- I will give you a cookie if I have one.
So informing us that there is a condition is NOT the core of the Conditional. But what is it then?
When you look to textbooks, they’ll usually give you a list of what the “Konjunktiv II” (which we call Conditional) is used for and leave it at that. But I think there’s actually a common theme and after weeks and weeks of tedious lab work, CrossFit and consulting a shaman I was able to put it into words.
The Conditional shifts a statement away from reality.
Nothing more, nothing less. The effect that that shift has, the question how hypothetical and unreal the statement becomes is NOT clearly defined.
Let’s look at a few examples in English and see what effect that shift has in different contexts.
- I kissed you because you asked.
- I would have kissed you, if you had asked.
(I feel like some English speakers would say just “asked” here.
I’m not arguing that it’s wrong, but what I do argue is that it’s not logical;
challenge me in the comments ;).
Here, we’re talking about the past tense and one key feature of the past tense is that it’s fixed. So when you shift a statement away from that line you automatically make it unreal.
Now let’s take this sentence:
- I will kiss you if you ask.
- I would kiss you if you asked.
Same statement as before but this time, it is set in the future. And because the future is by its very nature NOT reality yet, but just bunch of options, using the Conditional marker to shift our statement does NOT make it completely unrealistic. I mean… where there’s no fixed real, there’s no fixed unreal, right? So the effect of the shift here is merely making it sound a bit less likely.
One more example:
- Can you kiss me real quick?
- Could you kiss me real quick?
This is basically the same question. The only effect using a Conditional marking is making it sound a bit more polite. Which ties in fine with the core idea, actually. You see, shifting the statement (further) away from reality you acknowledge the fact that the other person has a will of their own and might say no. It is less demanding, less “intrusive”.
Cool… so now that we have an idea of the “thing” Conditional in general, let’s get more specific and turn our eye to German.
Conditional in German – a brief Overview
The Conditional in German exists in two tenses: the past and the non-past. Well, technically there also exists a version for the future and maybe another one which I am not aware of, but they’re about as useful as as dandruff.
So, yeah… in practice, there’s past conditional and non-past conditional. The past conditional is used to talk about … Cpt. Obvious, please tell us..
“Veganism.”
Bro!!! You were supposed to say “The Past”! Gee, you had one job.
- Captain Obvious hätte seinen Job gut gemacht, wenn er “Past” gesagt hätte.
- Captain obvious would have done his job well, if he had said “Past”.
It’s sentences like these that most learners are having trouble with, and one of the reasons is that they think they can translate directly from English. Have I mentioned that you can’t, yet? Well… you still can’t :).
Cool. Now, the non-past conditional talks about stuff that is NOT in the past… so either the present or the future.
- “Was für ein toller Sonnenuntergang.”
“Er wäre schöner, wenn es nicht regnen würde.” - “What an amazing sunset.”
“It would be more beautiful, if it weren’t raining.”
- Ich würde mich freuen, dich zu sehen.
- I’d be happy to see you.
For the non-past conditional, there are actually TWO versions for every verb. Let’s call them würde-conditional and real condition. Here’s an example.
- Ich würde gerne wissen, wieviel Maria wiegt. (würde-conditional)
- Ich wüsste gerne, wieviel Maria wiegt. (real conditional)
(I’d like to know how much Maria weighs.)
Now, wissen is one of the verbs that actually uses both forms, but for most of the verbs, only one will sound idiomatic. Most of the verbs use the würde-conditional but the few that do use the other version are incredibly important and common… haben, sein, the modal verbs, gehen, sehen and a few more.
And if all this made you go like “Hmmm…. that sounds familiar.”
Well, that’s because it is. It is the exact same setup as for the past tense in German, with spoken past and written past
(if you don’t know about that stuff, you should check out my series on past tense. Link below).
Cool. So now you have an overview and what we need to do in this series is basically this:
- learn how to build the würde-conditional
- learn how to build the real conditional
- train to use them (when)
- learn how to build the past conditional
- get frustrated over certain aspects of the past conditional
- pull ourselves together and own the shit of the past conditional
If that doesn’t sound like a plan then I don’t know what does.
And because the würde-conditional is SO easy to build and we have a bit of time left, we’ll talk about that real quick.
How to build the würde-conditional
The würde-conditional is what we’ll need for the vast majority of the verbs (about 98.6573% to give you a precise guess).
It is called würde-conditional because it is built with the help of würde… or würden or würdest and so on.
What is this würde-thing?
Well, it’s actually the real conditional form of werden. To give you a bit of background… the würde-conditional is actually derived from the German tense nobody uses… the future. And it’s the same in English. There, the future is signaled by the helper verb will and the conditional is often marked by would... which is a form of will.
Yeah… I know it looks different but I’m totally not comparing, here. #nocomparison
Anyway, so yeah… to build the würde-conditional of a sentence, all we need to do is take würde, add the proper ending and put it into the verb position. And the verb that describes the action gets dictionary form. Sounds WAY less clear than it actually is, so let’s just look at an example. This…
- Ich gehe um 6 in den Park.
- I will go to the park at 6.
becomes this…
- Ich würde um 6 in den Park gehen.
- I would go to the park at 6.
Easy, right? RIGHT?!?!?!
It’s basically the same structure as the future tense…. oh… wait, nobody cares about that.
It’s basically the same structure as if we were using a modal verb.
- Ich würde um 6 in den Park gehen.
- Ich kann um 6 in den Park gehen.
Do you see? It is the exact same sentence structure and the only difference is würde. Now, for completion let’s also do an example with a “all verbs at the end”-sentence and a question.
- “Würdest du das Buch kaufen?”
“Ja, wenn es nicht so viel kosten würde.” - “Would you buy the book?”
“Yes, if it didn’t cost that much.”
And now it’s your turn.
“WHAT?! Already?!?!?!”
Yes, already :). We’ll use my patented method of Learnacise®…. learning by exercise (@Harvard: I’m still open to sharing this system, but you need to up your offer for my method).
I’ll give you a 10 German sentences and you have make them into a conditional. Some of them are fill in the blank type questions, for others you have to put the elements in the right order.
They get progressively harder and tricky, but the goal is that you get a feel for the system, not that you get them all right.
I give you the normal German sentence (without conditional) and the English conditional version as a help. And if you need a hint, you can listen to the solution in the audio.
Oh and you don’t have have the ü-umlaut on your keyboard… NO PROBLEM! Just use “ue”, it’ll be correct too.
So… viel Spaß and I’ll see you in a few minutes :).
(oh and please let me know if there are errors in the exercise… I added a new improved version just a few days ago and sometimes I mess up with the marking)
And, how did you do?? If you did have problems with any of these, please share in the comments, and we’ll clear it all up.
Now, this was really just a small, technical exercise so you get to train the form of the würde-conditional. We’ll do a really big, more challenging one, as well, but we need to talk about the real conditional first.
Which is what we’ll do next time :).
So, that’s it for today. This was our little introduction in the world of Conditional in general and the würde-conditional in particular.
Here’s a super brief recap:
- “Conditional” is a marking that shifts a statement away from the line of reality
- We call it Conditional because the “official” names suck (let’s meet in the comments if you disagree ;)
- The exact effect of that shift depends on context
- Conditional can be built for the past and the non-past
- For the non-past, every verb has two versions of it, würde-conditional and real conditional
- Which version is used depends on what’s idiomatic for the verb
As always, if you have any questions about any of this so far or if you want to complain that I’m not using the official names, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
If you’re still fit, you can continue right with part two:
Conditional in German 2 – The Real Conditional
Further reading:
I like how you built in the mini-quizzes into these grammar pieces. While you kind of show it in the examples before, when you really start to build the würde conditional, you don’t explicitly say that many of these will create a nebensatz kind of construction – something that (at least in English) feels very incomplete without more information.
Above, “I would go to the park at 6.” is where a comment about this would help. I remember a year or so ago being confused as this is an awkward sentence unless it is an answer to a question or a set up for another part of the statement “…if it isn’t raining” “….if Maria wouldn’t get upset”
I’m not sure I understand what you mean actually.
“you don’t explicitly say that many of these will create a nebensatz kind of construction –”
What do you mean by that?
I checked the part you referenced and I understand that you would like to see an “if”-clause because it sounds incomplete as it is.
But that’s not really related to the conditional part itself, right?
Sorry. Yes – the translation of the sentence feels enough incomplete that (again, IMO) there might be an explanation that “I would go to the park at 6” isn’t a complete statement in normal speaking.
But you are right, it doesn’t mean that the conditional is not correct. Ending that phrase with a period is just hard for me to accept :)
All the other examples on the page and in the quiz make sense as there is another clause or the conditional is phrased as a question. Earlier you gave “Ich würde gern wissen, wieviel Maria wieght.” This makes sense because of the second clause. You could have left off the second clause and still made the conditional, but I’m glad you have the second clause for how it works as a sentence. “I would go to the park at 6” is the only example where I felt like the point you were making was getting lost because the answer/translation wasn’t complete. All good. I’m so glad these Grammar / Basics articles are updated. I come back here and re-re-read often. Each time, I usually come away with a detail that escaped me the first time or two.
Hi, Emanuel! Super useful as always! Thanks!
Now I have a couple of questions:
1- “Solltest du ihn sehen, grüße ihn von mir.” Will you be dealing with examples like this? I mean, the use of “sollen” in conditional sentences.
2- Will you discuss the use of Konjunktiv forms in other contexts other than conditional clauses?
I’ll do a lesson about “sollen vs “sollte” soon, so that might answer some questions.
As for uses other than conditional clauses… could you give me an example?
Great! Then I look forward to that post then!
I was referring to cases such as the following ones (all authentic examples):
-Da wären wir endlich.
-Das hätten wir endlich überstanden.
-Wie schön wäre es, wenn ich jetzt weiterschlafen könnte, aber ich muss aufstehen!
-Er wäre bestimmt nicht glücklich, auch wenn er viel Geld hätte.
-Sie hat uns geholfen, ohne dass wir sie darum gebeten hätten.
-Beinahe hätte ich deinen Geburstag vergessen
-Ich schließe immer meine Tür ab, sonst könnte ja jeder einfach so hineinkommen.
Okay, I see what you’re going for!
Some of them are normal conditional though, imo:
-Wie schön wäre es, wenn ich jetzt weiterschlafen könnte, aber ich muss aufstehen!
-Er wäre bestimmt nicht glücklich, auch wenn er viel Geld hätte.
-Beinahe hätte ich deinen Geburstag vergessen
-Ich schließe immer meine Tür ab, sonst könnte ja jeder einfach so hineinkommen.
These four are normal hypotheticals marked by conditional. Let me know if you have some follow up questions about that. The other examples are indeed special though.
Oh, all right! Thanks! I just wanted to check whether they sounded right to you.
My follow-up question, then, is this: is the Konjunktiv in the remaining three cases something speakers can actively make use of? Why do you see these examples as special?
Yeah, they’re used. I meant special in so far as that they don’t really fit the standard purpose of “conditional” as marking something as hypothetical.
– Da wären wir.
People might say that the moment they arrive somewhere, it doesn’t get more factual than that. BUt I don’t know how to explain that, actually. It might just be an idiomatic usage that has no deeper logic.
Thank you, Emanuel! Perhaps we could think of them in terms of “what could have gone wrong”, or as a way of contrasting the final situation with how it might otherwise have developed. I mainly wanted to check their naturality. Thanks once again!
Maybe that’s where the phrasings come from but it’s definitely not how they feel. I really can’t feel or see any logic there.
1)Würdest du das Buch kaufen?”
“Ja, wenn es nicht so viel kosten würde.”
2) Ich würde mir das Buch kaufen, wenn es nicht so viel kosten würde.
In sentences like these, why can’t the sentence be like
Würdest du das Buch kaufen?”
“Ja, wenn es würde nicht so viel kosten.”
Ich würde mir das Buch kaufen, wenn es würde nicht so viel kosten.
würde is not at the last but after es.
“wenn” creates a side sentence, so the verb goes back home to the end.
– Ich gehe morgen arbeiten.
– Wenn ich morgen arbeiten gehe, …
I think this might be to do with the new site stylesheet update, but every successive question makes everything shrink on the page on mobile. I’m on question 8 and everything is so small it’s basically unreadable.
Could you tell me what browser you’re using and what device? Possibly, could you send me a screenshot?
Sorry for the late reply, I’m using Google Chrome on a Pixel 8. Not sure how to send a screenshot in comment.
You can’t in a comment, but just send it to info@german-is-easy.com
Hey Emmanuel! This is so useful as always. I was wondering if it’s somewhere in your plans to make a post or post series for Konjunktiv 1 also? I know it’s not super useful in everyday life, but I do come across it occasionally while reading news or a magazine article, and I always think “damn, I could never construct a sentence like that”. I feel like it would be interesting to really understand it, even if we don’t use it regularly. For example, in written English you often come across formal structures that you would never use in real life, but they’re important to know in order to read more advanced stuff. Do you feel it’s not the case with Konjunktiv 1?
I mean, I do plan on getting to Konditional 1 eventually, but that’s really really low priority. The only difference to anything you already know is the verb form. There is no different sentence structure or anything connected to it.
– Sie sagt, dass er müde sei. (Konditional 1)
– Sie sagt, dass er müde ist. (normal)
So there really isn’t much to explain beyond the form and when to use it (which for a learner is pretty much “never”).
How do i put the words in order? I can only click on one per question.
You have to hold and drag them.
That would be great to add to the quiz instructions! I couldn’t figure that out, either, and so was marked wrong for all the questions that used that format.
“Das hätten wir” – can you explain why this sentence means “that’s it, done” while it’s structured like a hypothetical? Because to my untrained ear it sounds like “Had we…”. Why not “Das haben wir”?
Good question.
There’s a similar phrasing with “wäre” too, and that one also exist in English.
– Das wäre alles.
– That would be it (aka That’s it)
I think the origins of this are “Polite talk”. Like “would you be so kind”, “could you tell me” and so on.
“das hätten wir” seems a bit odd indeed. Maybe just think of it as a fixed phrase. It doesn’t “feel” hypothetical to me.
Oh right, “that would be it” does pretty much the same thing. Now I get it, danke schön!
How can the future have a nature if it’s not reality yet? (Not serious, just messing with you ;)
But isn’t “not being reality” a distinguishable quality, hence “nature”?
And does it not show, where future gets its nature?
And isn’t future just a concept we came up with, that we fill with “nature”?
And if it’s not us, isn’t future just the driving force of life expressed in the time dimension?
:)
You win!!
hey emanuel. is there a post for “Konjunktiv 1” also? I had never studied that cause I thought it is of no use. but in Schreibens and Letters it’s useful when referring.
No, I don’t have a post on it, because it’s so useless for most learners.
Is there anything you’re struggling with about the Konjunktiv 1?
I have a question about this, actually. I was reading a book where one character gets hit by another character and the first one turns around and says “ich wollte die Person fragen, ob sie nicht aufpassen könne.” In this case, könne would appear to be Subjunctive 1, even though no one’s being quoted. Do you know why this is?
I would call that a self quote. Change “wollte fragen” to “habe gefragt” and it’ll be more obvious.
Is this an old book? Because no one talks like that.
Thank you for this. Your explanations make this aspect of German grammar (which had always worried me) clearer than it has ever been for me, in the past. // Just one comment on your remark relating to would have kissed you, if you had asked (I feel like some English speakers would say just “asked” here). I tried this (English) sentence a few times, and realised that English speakers often say ‘if you’d asked’ – and when you say it quickly, the ‘d’ just disappears.
Hey Emanuel! I am new here and I wanted to share a piece of feedback about the website construction itself.
Before subscribing as a member, I reached my 2 articles per week limit. I then subscribed and logged in but the articles were still “blocked” by that limit.
I had to clear all my browser cache for the website, which eventually logged me out and also cleared my limit. So I was able to read a third article in one week without being logged in.
I logged in again, and I am still not able to read more than two articles without the hack above.
Hi there, I just checked and the payment is marked as “under review”, so I’d wager you didn’t fully complete the payment process via Paypal.
Could you please get in touch via email about this? As of now, you do have an account but no active membership, hence the block. Thank you.
Hi! Thanks for the fast reply. I went through the checkout again and I had indeed forgotten to complete the previous checkout. Totally my mistake! I was still charged the first time that’s why I got confused and Paypal has already refunded the amount.
Now that I did the checkout properly it is working good!
Oh, good to hear it’s all sorted!
I think I need to somehow make that button more visible. You’re not the only one who missed it.
Hey Emanuel i just did the quiz but the 9th exercise (where Maria would allow him to eat haha) i wrote würde and then würde again but it showed wrong and the correct answer is to change the “würde” with each other.
So my conclusion is: even this website is still trying to figure out German
Actually, one of the “würde” has a period after it :)
“würde.”
That’s the only way to distinguish between the two, but it’s easy to miss and the computer doesn’t really understand what’s going on, so it just compares your order to the original one.
Thanks.
Same happened to me, too.
Guess the takeaway is, “Always read the small print… even if it’s a fullstop”
Not sure how to take your quiz. How do we know if the answer is correct or not? If we click “next”, it just moves on to the next question. What do the “student” and other buttons do? If I click on them, they just turn to a different color. Not intuitive. How about a “submit”, after which we are told if our answer is correct or not?
Hey there, the settings were messed up indeed. I changed it so the correct answer is shown after each question when you hit “check”. “student” will then show your version and “correct” shows the correct version.
If you come across other quizzes like this please let me know. I used to set them all up with “answers at the end” but have since switched to “answer after the question”. But I haven’t changed all of them yet.
“ich würde mich freuen, dich zu sehen” is showing wrong? maybe its an obvious mistake but i cant figure out why this answer is incorrect
wait- thats a full stop? so the sentence has no comma?
Ah, it does have a comma, but not in the quiz.
I think having a full stop but no comma is a bit confusing, if i may say so : )
Not sure what you mean… in the quiz, it was scored correctly when I just tried it.
Hey! What exactly is the difference between Konjunktiv 1 and 2?
When you need them and how they are formed.
You don’t really need Konjunktiv 1 in daily life, Konjunktiv 2 is what should get all the attention until you master it.
The Start Quiz button doesn’t work.
I think I just fixed it, thank you for letting me know :)
hey there, you said we can most of the time translate würde into would, so can we translate this like:
into : It was more beautiful, if it would not rain.
and if no, then how can we consider using either wäre or würde in a sentence?
I would translate it as
But maybe your version with “was” is also correct. We’d need a native English speaker for that. The thing with “was” is that it’s not clear whether it’s past or conditional here and that sounds a bit confusing to me.
In the English sentence the was and would don’t really work together. I would be expecting was Not instead of would not but even then that sounds weird because was doesn’t really express the future but instead the past. The correct sentence in English would be – It would have been more beautiful, if it was not raining. At least that sounds to me like it has the same meaning. An alternate version with was would be – It was more beautiful, when it was not raining, but this is past indicating that you had witnessed it in the prior state (not raining) and that it was preferable to the current state (is raining). The previous sentence indicates more your prediction that it may be more beautiful if it were not for the rain.
Hope that makes sense.
Actually, your sentence is about the past, and the German sentence is about the present, so they’re not the same.
In English, the sentence might be:
This sentence talks about the present; to express the past conditional, one would use:
These sentences are technically correct, using the English subjunctive. In practice, though, nobody says this, not even in writing. A modern American (I can’t speak for British English; maybe their usage is different) would probably phrase it this way:
Why does English use the simple past to express a present condition (“if it wasn’t . . .”)? No idea. But in any case, it sounds unnatural to use “would” for the second clause. One more reason why you shouldn’t translate directly from English, but rather form the German sentence on its own!
@hexyrose That is not a grammatically correct English sentence. English speakers do not use “was” to form the conditional.
Will + base form if … (don’t) base form
Would + base form if… (didn’t + base form) or past tense verb
You might say:
It was more beautiful on the days it didn’t rain. = Past tense statement
It was more beautiful when it wasn’t raining.
These aren’t conditional sentences.
Thanks for clearing that up :)
In den romanischen Sprachen, die ich gelernt habe, gibt es verschiedene Formen für das abhängige Ereignis (“fosse”) und das unabhängige Ereignis (“sarebbe”). Auf Schwedish (fast immer) und auf English (“had” bzw “would have”) ist es auch so.
Aber auf Deutsch braucht man für die beiden Fälle diesselbe Form. Ich meine, obwohl man ja entweder Konjunktiv oder die Ersatzform mit “würde” brauchen kann, gibt es eigentlich keinen Funktionsunderschied zwischen den beiden (beide können sowohl beim abhängigen als beim unabhängigen Ereignis vorkommen).
Für mich war es schwer zu verstehen, dass das Deutsch anders ist, als die anderen Sprachen. Ich habe lange gedacht, dass man “würde” nur im abhängigen Fall benutzen kann (also ungefähr wie “would”), insbesonders als “würde” und “would” mit einander verwandt sind.
Jetzt glaube ich, ich habe alles verstanden.
i keep getting the message 2 posts a week are free drdpite i oaid $30 USD for a subscription
can you help me
Hi I did see your other two comments about this and I replied to both of them!
I have no active membership for you and no payment within the last 12 months, except the one for 3 months from last November, so I would assume the payment didn’t go through when you tried.
Also, I tried to email you to the address associated with this username, but it got returned with a notification that the address can’t receive mail. You might want to look into that.
My email is info@german-is-easy.com. Please contact me, so we can sort this out.
I’m using Chrome. I had this problem in the past but it suddenly self-corrected. Seems to be back