The CONDITIONAL PERFECT tense often comes up when making IF statements. "I would have done...if I had known."
The formation of the conditional perfect is just like making the present perfect which we did earlier in the semester. (You can find the lesson in Semana 3 or in the Grammar Links area.) The only difference is the tense you use for haber.
I would have worked yesterday.
Yo habría trabajado ayer.
The chart below outlines which tense you use for HABER for each of the compound (or "perfect") tenses. You'll know which one by the name of the compound tense:
| Tense | Form of HABER conjugation | Example | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present perfect | present | Yo he leído | I have read |
| Past perfect (or pluscuamperfecto) | imperfect | Yo había leído | I had read |
| Future perfect | future | Yo habré leído | I will have read |
| Conditional perfect | conditional | Yo habría leído | I would have read |
| Present perfect subjunctive | present subjunctive | Le gusta que yo haya leído | He likes that I have read... |
| Past perfect subjunctive | imperfect subjunctive | Le sorprendió que yo hubiera leído | He was surprised that I had read... |
NOTE: You don't really ever see haber in the preterit as a compound tense except in formal or archaic writing.
To see fully conjugated examples for each of these tenses, look at the Sample Verb Form chart we did back in Semana 2.