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Learn tardar conjugation in Condicional Perfecto

tardar means: to take time
Click to see all conjugation charts of tardar in every tense

In this Spanish conjugation lesson we are going to learn how to conjugate the verb tardar 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

Notice that the English phrases 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 inflected 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:
  • An inflected 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
Check out 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 tardar only here.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 have to begin by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s easy to do – just remove two letters from the end of the infinitive to get the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem.So for tardar:
  • the stem is: tard-
  • and the ending is: -ar
Based on the ending of the infinitive we can tell that tardar belongs to the -ar verb group. This group, in turn, uses the -ado ending in its Participio form. Putting all that together, our Participio is: tardado.

Now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, let’s proceed 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. To that we add the Participio tardado to get habría tardado:
  • yo habría tardado – I would have taken time
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 that is habrías. To this auxiliary verb we add the Participio tardado (so the exact same word as previously) to get habrías tardado:
  • tú habrías tardado – you would have taken time
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 tardado:
  • él habría tardado – he would have taken time
  • ella habría tardado – she would have taken time
  • usted habría tardado – (formal) you would have taken time
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The first person plural has the form habríamos tardado. 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 tardar: tardado to get habríamos tardado:
  • nosotros habríamos tardado – we would have taken time
  • nosotras habríamos tardado – (feminine) we would have taken time
Again, let’s do the same for the second person plural. We have 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 tardado:
  • vosotros habríais tardado – (plural) you would have taken time
  • vosotras habríais tardado – (feminine, plural) you would have taken time
And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form habrían tardado. 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 tardar again (tardado) to get habrían tardado:
  • ellos habrían tardado – they would have taken time
  • ellas habrían tardado – (feminine) they would have taken time
  • ustedes habrían tardado – (formal, plural) you would have taken time

Hurray! The conjugation is now finished. That’s the final result:

yohabría tardadoI would have taken time
habrías tardadoyou would have taken time
él/ella/ustedhabría tardadohe/she/it would have taken time
nosotros/nosotrashabríamos tardadowe would have taken time
vosotros/vosotrashabríais tardadoyou would have taken time
ellos/ellas/ustedeshabrían tardadothey would have taken time
Click to see all conjugation charts of tardar 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 tardar visit our Exercise section
  • To see conjugation charts in all tenses for tardar visit the Conjugator
  • To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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