"Nous serions allées ensemble au magasin."
Translation:We would have gone to the store together.
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529
What is the difference between we would have gone together and we wouls have went together?
107
What is it with the multitude of different words to seemingly just mean "would have". I have just memorised to get through the lesson which I have gone through a few times now. I can make no sense out of this at all. DL does not provide any explanation for all of this, and these have by far been the most difficult lessons to understand as I still do not understand them. Others have been confusing, but I still figured them out. Well...except for things like, for example, why it always seems to be "du lait" or "du vin" when "de" would be appropriate for other words or "le chocolat" even when it is talking about "some chocolate" or "chocolate" in general (non-specifically) and for all of those time I have had it hammered into me with other explanations that "de" is appropriate for that as well yet "chocolat" seems to be some sort of special case even with insufficient (and unhelpful) explanations otherwise. Is there a link or something to provide that can explain this? I would greatly appreciate it.
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No. Not on this lesson. I am going through, and, for the most part, "aurait", "aurais" is used, but then, for example "serais" will be the answer. They both seemingly mean "would have". So what is the difference? When do I use which?
@JonProphet
I gave a reply on a couple of other threads where you asked the same question - but maybe you didn't see those replies so:-
Yes "nous serions" and "nous aurions" both can translate as ""we would have" - which we use depends on the verb that follows.
The tense here is the "past conditional". It is a compound tense - that means we combine some aspect of an auxiliary verb with some aspect of the main verb. As you will know French uses two verbs as auxiliaries- "être" and "avoir".
"nous serions" is the conditional of "être"
"nous aurions" is the conditional of "avoir".
When we form the past conditional of a verb in French we must combine the conditional of an auxiliary verb (either avoir or être) and the past participle of the main verb.
Most verbs use avoir as the auxiliary - so for most verbs we use the conditional of avoir when forming the "past conditional"
However all reflexive verbs and about 16 other verbs use "être" as the auxiliary - so with these verbs we have to use the conditional of "être" when forming the past conditional.
Compare "we would have gone" with "we would have eaten"
"Aller" is one of the verbs on the list of 16 or so "être" verbs - so we use "nous serions allées"
"Manger" is not on the list - so we use "nous aurions mangé"
Checkout links for a fuller explanation and a list of the verbs that take "être" as the auxiliary when forming compound tenses.
There are Tips&Notes earlier in another lesson about the fact that a number of verbs use the auxiliary "être" and not "avoir".
Verbs of movement are among those: aller, venir, partir, monter, descendre, tomber, arriver, entrer...
More info about this here: http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/etreverbs.htm
Actually, both the tense and the mood were wrong.
Verbs are conjugated according to their mood and tense:
Moods are: infinitive (to go), participle, indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative (let's go!).
The participle, indicative, subjunctive and conditional moods have several tenses each:
Participle: present "going", past "gone".
Indicative: present "we go", continuous present "we are going", future "we will go", present perfect "we have gone", past simple "we went" past perfect "we had gone".
Conditional: present "we would go", past "we would have gone".
The indicative past simple tense translates to the French indicative compound past: "we went" = "nous sommes allé(e)s".
The conditional past tense translates to the French conditional past tense: "we would have gone" = "nous serions allé(e)s".
It is not required, only optional and not necessary, in my opinion.
https://www.thoughtco.com/learn-proper-french-pronunciation-liaisons-4083657
All conjugations for "nous", any verb, mood and tense ends in -ons (with an -s).
"Serions" (would be) is the verb "être" and "aurions" is the verb "avoir" (would have).
All English verbs use the auxiliary "to have" in compound tenses, but in French, many verbs use the auxiliary "être". "Aller" is an "être" verb, so you need the auxiliary être in conditional, which is "serions".