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Learn responder conjugation in Condicional Perfecto

responder means: to answer, to reply, to answer back
Click to see all conjugation charts of responder in every tense

In this Spanish conjugation lesson we are going to learn how to inflect the verb responder in the Condicional Perfecto tense of the Indicativo mood. It means we will see step by step how to create and translate forms of each grammatical person.

How to translate Condicional Perfecto to English

Note that the phrases in English provided below next to each conjugation are not direct translations from Spanish to English. They are usually the closest general equivalents. The example differences are:
  • In Spanish conjugation, there is the form usted in the third person singular. But this person does not translate to the English third person singular. It translates to the so called formal you and uses the inflected form which is most often represented as he/she/it in English conjugation charts.
  • Similar situation happens in the third person plural, where ustedes translates to the English plural formal you but uses the form which corresponds to the they form in English.
  • Tenses are used differently in Spanish and English, so the actual translation should always take into account the context and focus on translating the meaning, not just words.
  • In both languages each verb may have multiple meanings and not every meaning translates directly to the other language. Here also, the context and focusing on the particular meaning helps to create the most accurate translation.

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Step by step instructions

Condicional Perfecto is a compound tense (Spanish: compuesto). It means that all of its conjugated forms consist of two words. In Spanish language, there are also simple tenses, where each conjugated verb form is one word long.

In a compound tense the endings of the auxiliary verb change, not the endings of the main verb, which is the case in Spanish simple tenses.In the compound tenses, every person’s form consist of two parts:
  • A conjugated form of the auxiliary verb haber. In case of the Condicional Perfecto de Indicativo tense, we use the Condicional Simple de Indicativo (Conditional) conjugation of haber
  • Past Participle, which is always the same in every compound tense for a given verb
Refer to the conjugation charts and this haber conjugation lesson to learn how to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber. That’s a separate topic, so for brevity we’ll focus on the parts derived from responder only in this lesson.In order to create the Participio form, we need a stem and an ending. We use the stem of the infinitive of the main verb, and a single ending, which depends on the conjugation group of the main verb. So we need to begin by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s very easy to do – simply remove two letters from the end of the infinitive form to get the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem.So in case of our verb:
  • the stem is: respond-
  • and the ending is: -er
Based on the ending of the infinitive we can recognize that responder belongs to the -er verb group. This group, in turn, uses the -ido ending in its Participio form. Putting all that together, our Participio is: respondido.

Now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, we can move on with creating the final conjugation forms.
In order to create the first person singular form, we simply take the first person singular form of haber conjugated in Condicional Simple de Indicativo, which is habría. And to that we add the Participio respondido to get habría respondido:
  • yo habría respondido – I would have answered
Next, to create the form for the second person singular, we again need to take the second person singular form of haber from the Condicional Simple de Indicativo tense, and it is habrías. And to this auxiliary verb we add the Participio respondido (so the exact same word as previously) to get habrías respondido:
  • tú habrías respondido – you would have answered
Similarly, if we want to create the form for the third person singular, we conjugate haber in the Condicional tense and we use the corresponding person’s form (third person singular), namely habría. Then we also take the same Participio as for all other persons, and putting them together we get habría respondido:
  • él habría respondido – he would have answered
  • ella habría respondido – she would have answered
  • usted habría respondido – (formal) you would have answered
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The first person plural has the form habríamos respondido. It’s created by following the same logic as in the other persons. We first take the form of the first person plural from haber conjugation in the Condicional Simple de Indicativo tense: habríamos. Second, and to this word we again add the Participio of responder: respondido to get habríamos respondido:
  • nosotros habríamos respondido – we would have answered
  • nosotras habríamos respondido – (feminine) we would have answered
Again, let’s do the same for the second person plural. We need to get the inflected form of the verb haber in the Condicional Simple de Indicativo tense, second person plural, and it is habríais. Next, we take our unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get habríais respondido:
  • vosotros habríais respondido – (plural) you would have answered
  • vosotras habríais respondido – (feminine, plural) you would have answered
And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form habrían respondido. We create it in the exact same manner as in all the other grammatical persons. We need the third person plural of haber first, from its Condicional conjugation. It is habrían. We add the Participio of responder again (respondido) to get habrían respondido:
  • ellos habrían respondido – they would have answered
  • ellas habrían respondido – (feminine) they would have answered
  • ustedes habrían respondido – (formal, plural) you would have answered

That’s it! The conjugation is now done. The final result looks as follows:

yohabría respondidoI would have answered
habrías respondidoyou would have answered
él/ella/ustedhabría respondidohe/she/it would have answered
nosotros/nosotrashabríamos respondidowe would have answered
vosotros/vosotrashabríais respondidoyou would have answered
ellos/ellas/ustedeshabrían respondidothey would have answered
Click to see all conjugation charts of responder in every tense

But do not end your session yet – it is very important to repeat and practice the material in order to remember it. Check below for next steps.

Next Steps to Perfection

  • To practice this conjugation and test yourself try this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game
  • To see other conjugation lessons for this verb choose another tense:  
  • For exercises and examples related to responder visit our Exercise section
  • To see conjugation charts in all tenses for responder visit the Conjugator
  • To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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