The Focus of This Lesson is the Simple Conditional
Buenos días, Me gustaría hacer un reclamo.
"Good Morning, I would like to make a complaint."

We use the conditional 1) to express a future time in the past, 2) to indicate a conjecture or possibility, 3) to show the softening of a statement, and 4) to show something hypothetical. We generally translate the conditional tense with the infinitive verb following either of the modal verbs, "would" or "could." Thus, yo pensaría means, "I would think" or "I could think."

Formation

We form the conditional tense with the endings -ía, -ías, and -ía in the singular, and with -íamos, -íais, and -ían in the plural for all regular verbs ending in -ar, -er, and -ir. Let's use the verbs disfrutar ("to enjoy"), dormir ("to sleep"), and parecer ("to seem") as examples.

Disfrutar

Parecer

Dormir

We see that for all regular -ar, -er, and -ir verbs, the conditional endings are the same. This makes them a lot easier to memorize. What's more, if we think back to the future tense, we remember that we used the complete form of the infinitive, and then added on the future endings to form the future tense. Therefore, it makes sense that the conditional tense would require the complete infinitive and then the conditional endings as well (following the same pattern as the future) because the conditional tense is a future tense, but it's clearly not the absolute future. This will become clearer as time goes on and you learn more tenses. For now, try your best to remember the formation of the conditional and the context in which we use it will make itself more apparent.

Examples from this Dialogue

1. Buenos días, me gustaría hacer un reclamo.
   "Good morning, I would like to make a complaint."
2. Claro, ¿me puede explicar cual es el problema?
   "Sure, can you explain what the problem is?"
3. Entiendo, pero lamento decirle que si se tratara de una cirugía plástica su seguro no la cubriría.
   "I understand, but I'm sorry to tell you that if this is about plastic surgery, your insurance won’t cover it."

Sample Sentences

1. Los niños dormirían toda la tarde.
   "The children would sleep all afternoon."
2. Yo invertiría dinero en eso.
   "I would invest money in that."
3. Así parecería.
   "So it would seem."

Language Tip

We see that for all regular -ar, -er, and -ir verbs, the conditional endings are the same. This makes them a lot easier to memorize. What's more, if we think back to the future tense, we remember that we used the complete form of the infinitive, and then added on the future endings to form the future tense. Therefore, it makes sense that the conditional tense would require the complete infinitive and then the conditional endings as well (following the same pattern as the future) because the conditional tense is a future tense, but it's clearly not the absolute future. This will become clearer as time goes on and you learn more tenses. For now, try your best to remember the formation of the conditional and the context in which we use it will make itself more apparent.

Los seguros casi nunca cubren las cirugías plástica, sólo si es una cirugía por accidente, no por estética. Pero las compañías aseguradoras, tienen muchos requisitos para comprobar que es una cirugía por accidente. Es muy difícil comprobar este tipo de accidentes y se deben de llenar muchos papeles. Generalmente piden cartas de los doctores, estas cartas deben explicar la razón de la cirugía plástica, también se deben entregar todos los documentos del accidente. Todo esto debe estar sellado y con firmas de las personas responsables. Eso es parte de la burocracia que hay en América Latina.
Otra de las razones por las que investigan cada caso, es por que hacen muchas estafas a las compañías de seguros, en algunos casos hasta los policías están involucrados con la estafa.
Por eso cada documento debe de tener sellos y códigos, para poder comprobar que son reales.
Muchas personas tratan de que el seguro les pague las cirugías por estética, es por eso que las compañías de seguros también piden entregar una carta del doctor que diga porque se debe hacer la cirugía y si es realmente necesaria.