# Past conditional/subjunctive....



## Todd The Bod

How would I express a past subjunctive or past conditional idea?  Two illustrative phrases I can think of would be: 

"If I had money for one, I'd by it"  or:

"If I were to buy a new car, would you come for a ride?"


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## Kos

Hi there.

For sentences like this, the Polish conditional tense is used. The conjunction "gdyby" is usually used to mean "if". (In some cases jakby or jeśliby are used.) The conditional ending of the following verb is usually detached and put at the end of "gdyby." For example, "gdybym, gdybyś, gdybyśmy."
The verb in the second clause also goes in the conditional tense. The clauses are also usually linked with "to".

If I had money for one, I'd buy it" - Gdybym miał pieniądze, to kupiłbym go.

If I were to buy a car, would you come for a ride." - Gdybym kupił nowy samochód, to 
(Unfortunately I'm not certain on how to say the phrase "to go for a ride with someone", so hopefully a native Polish speaker can help you with this.)

Hope this helps.
-Kos


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## Todd The Bod

Thanks, I guess we'll have to wait and see...


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## Rusak963

Todd The Bod said:


> How would I express a past subjunctive or past conditional idea?  Two illustrative phrases I can think of would be:
> 
> "If I had money for one, I'd by it"  or:
> 
> "If I were to buy a new car, would you come for a ride?"



Hi.

The first one could be:

Gdybym miał pieniądze na taki(samochód), to kupiłbym go. Kos's sugestion is good too though.

The second could be:

Jeśli miałbym kupić nowy samochód, przyszedłbyś na przejażdżkę/jazdę próbną?

'Jazda próbna' is a test ride. I placed it there becasue the speaker may mean a test ride, since it's about a car purchase.

Hope that helps


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## majlo

I'll have a go too. 

I would translate "If I had money for one, I'd buy it" as _Gdybym miał pieniądze (na samochód), kupiłbym go_. _Na samochód _is optional here because it should be apparent from the context that it's a car. Possibly, you could also translate it as _Gdybym miał na niego pieniądze _if it's _the_ car. 

The latter sentence would be similar to Rusak's, but I'd be more likely to use _pojechałbyś ze mną _instead of _przyszedłbyś_.


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## Todd The Bod

Thanks, everyone.  I was thinking "Jak był miał..." or "Jak byłem miał..."which I'm glad I didn't try and post because I was way off, lol.


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## BezierCurve

Well, that would be pretty close to the colloquial "Jakbym miał...", which you can hear a lot and works exactly the same way.


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## Todd The Bod

I had asked someone years ago and thought they had said that, but with several years without using it or hearing it you start to question yourself.  The way you wrote it must've been what she told me.  I'm trying to get to the point of being able to use Polish in more complex contexts than "Jak sie masz djisiaj" or "Gdje idjesz", but it's hard with such limited opportunities...


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