Kilo Lingo
French grammar Part of Chapter 28

CEFR B2

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Test yourself (23 questions)

Conditionnel Passé: The French Conditional Perfect

By Michael McGettrickUpdated 12 October 2026

The is the tense of what did not happen: . - I would have liked to come (and I did not). It is the conditional of or plus the past participle, and it does five jobs.

the auxiliary, in the conditionalfeminine agreementplural agreementWhat do the colours mean?
JobExampleEnglish
1. Might-have-been .I would have liked to come.
2. , type 3 , .If I had known, I would have come.
3. News: reportedly .The minister has reportedly resigned.
4. Politeness .I was hoping for a word with you.
5. Future in past .He said he would have finished by noon.

Quick check

Now use it: three quick questions on the chart above. The full practice is further down.

Spot the mistake

0/3

Tap the mistake.

If you can build the present conditional and the passé composé, you can build this tense today. Only the uses are new.

How to form it

the auxiliary, in the conditionalfeminine agreementplural agreementWhat do the colours mean?

Take the and put its auxiliary into the conditional.

I did becomes I would have done: only the auxiliary moves
Subjectavoir verbêtre verb
/
/

The glosses: I would have done, I would have come, and so on down. The auxiliary takes the conditional endings you already know: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient.

The auxiliary choice and the agreement rules are the 's, unchanged:

RuleExampleEnglish
movement: .They would have left.
reflexive: .We would have got up early.
: agree .She would have stayed.
: object before the letter I would have written

Job 1: the might-have-been

the auxiliary, in the conditionalfeminine agreementplural agreementWhat do the colours mean?

Something was possible, and it did not come off. No is needed: everybody can work out the condition.

  • . - I would have liked to come.
  • . - She would have stayed longer.
  • . - We could have won.
  • . - That would have been simpler.

This is the everyday use in speech. Keep it apart from the plain conditional, which looks at now or later:

TenseFrenchEnglish
conditional I would come (now, or later)
cond. I would have come (the moment has gone)

Job 2: the result of a type 3 si clause

si + plus-que-parfaitthe auxiliary, in the conditionalfeminine agreementplural agreementWhat do the colours mean?

The si clauses page pairs the tenses. The third pairing is the unreal past: plus the plus-que-parfait, then the .

  • , . - If I had known, I would have come.
  • , . - If we had left earlier, we would not have missed the train.
  • . - I would have come if I had known. (The halves swap; the tenses stay.)

Real French often drops the and lets a short phrase carry the condition:

ConditionExampleEnglish
, .Without you, I would not have succeeded.
, .With a bit of luck, we would have won.
à place , .In your place, I would have said nothing.

Job 3: news reports and "reportedly"

stated as factreported, not checkedfeminine agreementplural agreementWhat do the colours mean?

French newspapers use the conditional for a claim they have heard but not checked. English adds a word, reportedly or allegedly; French changes the tense.

TenseHeadlineMeaning
.He has resigned. We vouch for it.
cond. .He has reportedly resigned.
  • . - The accident reportedly killed three people.
  • Lyon. - The two men are said to have met in Lyon.

The present conditional does the same for now: . - He is said to be in .

Job 4: politeness, looking back

the auxiliary, in the conditionalfeminine agreementplural agreementWhat do the colours mean?

The present conditional softens a request ( ). The conditional perfect softens it one notch further, as if the wish were already in the past.

BluntSoftest
  1. Je veux vous parler.I want to talk to you
  2. Je voudrais vous parler.I would like a word
  3. J’aurais voulu vous parler.I was hoping for a word
  • . - I was hoping for a quick word with you.
  • . - I was wondering whether that might be possible.
  • . - We would have preferred a quieter room.

The last is the useful pattern: a complaint in this tense lands softly, which is why hotel receptionists hear it all day.

Job 5: the future perfect, seen from the past

the tense as spokenthe tense in the reportWhat do the colours mean?

In reported speech, a future slides back into the conditional. A future perfect slides back into the conditional perfect.

SpeechFrenchEnglish
direct .I will have finished before noon.
reported .He said he would have finished before noon.

There is no hypothesis here: he fully expected to finish. Read as a failure and you have misread the sentence.

Mistakes English speakers make

WrongRightWhy
no conditional after
takes
: agree with the subject
the second verb stays infinitive
, , looks at now or later

One trap no table shows: a news conditional is not a might-have-been. reports a resignation; it does not imagine one.

What to do next

  1. Say three things you would have liked to do last year, with .
  2. Finish , ... twice: once with an verb, once with an verb.
  3. Then read j'aurais dû, tu aurais pu, one of the tense's commonest jobs.

Practise: test yourself

Build the word

0/4

Build the form from its pieces: the auxiliary in the conditional, or a participle that agrees.

  1. je + avoir, in the conditional: j'___ fait

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

  2. nous + être, in the conditional: nous ___ partis

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

  3. elle serait ___ (venir)

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

  4. ils seraient ___ (partir)

    Accents optional

    Your word is empty.

Sort into groups

0/6

What job is the conditional perfect doing in each sentence?

Tap a word, then the group it belongs in.

Spot the mistake

0/4

Tap the mistake.

Complete the story

0/5

Choose the right form for each gap.

The missed train

Hier, nous avons raté le train. Si nous partis plus tôt, nous arrivés à l'heure. Au cinéma, le film avait commencé sans nous. J' tellement aimé voir le début ! Selon la radio, le train eu un problème. Avec un peu de chance, on pu voir tout le film.

Gap 1 of 5

Pick the right one

0/4

Read the English, then choose the French that says it.

  1. I would have come yesterday.

  2. Tomorrow I would happily come.

  3. If I had known, I would have come.

  4. The minister has reportedly resigned.

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Frequently asked questions

How do you form the conditional perfect in French?
Take the present conditional of or and add the past participle: , , , . Verbs that take in the take here too, and the participle agrees with the subject: , , . Only the auxiliary's tense is new; its endings are the conditional ones, -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient.
What does the conditional perfect mean on its own, with no clause?
It states something that would have happened but did not. (I would have liked to come), (she would have stayed longer), on (we could have won). The condition is left unspoken because everybody can work it out from the situation. It is the everyday tense of the might-have-been, and it needs a no more than English needs an if to say I would have come.
Why is wrong?
Because the golden rule of clauses forbids a conditional straight after the that means if, in the past as in the present. A type 3 sentence pairs plus the -- with the conditional perfect in the result: , . The conditional lives in the result, never in the condition. French schoolchildren learn a rhyme against it, -rais, and it is worth over-learning until it comes out automatically.
What is the conditional perfect doing in a news report?
Marking the claim as unverified. French journalism uses the conditional for something it has been told but has not confirmed: (the accident reportedly killed three people), (the minister has reportedly resigned). English does this with a word, reportedly or allegedly; French does it with a tense. Put the same headline in the , a , and the paper stands behind it.
How do you say 'he said he would have finished by noon'?
a . In direct speech he said , with the future perfect; reported after a past verb, the future perfect slides back into the conditional perfect, just as a plain future slides into a plain conditional. Nothing in the sentence says he failed: he expected to finish. The full pattern is on the reported speech page.