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In German, the following verbal constructions are sometimes referred to as conditional (German: Konditional): Konjunktiv II, corresponds to English's present conditional. It is formed either with vowel change or with the auxiliary verb werden in its subjunctive form, plus the infinitive: [8] Ich käme ("I would come") Ich würde kommen ("I ...
For many German tenses, the verb itself is locked in a non-varying form of the infinitive or past participle (which normally starts with ge-) that is the same regardless of the subject, and then joined to an auxiliary verb that is conjugated. This is similar to English grammar, though the primary verb is normally placed at the end of the clause.
The latter is used like a conditional mood in German (English: I would). English speakers should note that German tenses do not carry aspect information. There are no progressive tenses in standard German. Das Mädchen geht zur Schule may mean "The girl goes to school" as well as "The girl is going to school".
This applies also to some verbs in German, in which the conditional mood is conventionally called Konjunktiv II, differing from Konjunktiv I. Thus, the conditional version of "John eats if he is hungry" is: English: John would eat if he were hungry German: Johannes äße, wenn/falls er Hunger hätte or: Johannes würde essen, wenn er Hunger hätte
Dutch has the same subjunctive tenses as German (described above), though they are rare in contemporary speech. The same two tenses as in German are sometimes considered a subjunctive mood (aanvoegende wijs) and sometimes conditional mood (voorwaardelijke wijs). In practice, potential subjunctive uses of verbs are difficult to differentiate ...
In the compound verbal constructions, there are forms for the indicative mood, the conditional mood, a mood for conditional possibility ("would be able to"), an imperative mood, a mood of ability or possibility, a mood for hypothetical "if" clauses in the present or future time, a counterfactual mood in the past tense, and a subjunctive mood ...
The grammar of the German language is quite similar to that of the other Germanic languages.Although some features of German grammar, such as the formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that of English in that it has, among other things, cases and gender in nouns and a strict verb-second word order in main clauses.
Later Germanic languages developed further tenses periphrastically, that is, using auxiliary verbs, but the constituent parts of even the most elaborate periphrastic constructions are still only in either present or preterite tenses (or non-finite forms, compare I would have been doing, an English conditional perfect progressive with would in ...