Condicional oración

Question

Hola todos, Yo tengo una pregunta para ustedes. En la sección de gramática, la explicación es "The conditional perfect describes an action in the past that "would have" happened but did not due to some other event. It can also be used to express probability of an action that has already been completed."

Yo tengo una oración para ustedes. "Habrías podido ser un poco más educado." "It's not describing an action in the past that would have happened but didn't do to some other event and it's not expressing a probability of an action that has already been completed. Can you explain to me why they used conditional here?

Answer 1

"The conditional perfect describes an action in the past that "would have" happened but did not due to some other event.

We actually call this tense "Condicional simple" or "Pospretérito". Both events (clauses) need to be mentioned for the sentence to have any meaning: "You would have been" - "Habrías sido un poco más educado si no estuvieras / estuvieses tan borracho."

"You could have been ...." "Podrías haber sido ....................."

Answer 2

Maybe this use of the conditional perfect - It is used primarily to indicate something hypothetical or unreal in past time.

You could have been more polite, but knowing you, not much chance of that happening.

Answer 3

It means: If you weren't such an effing gallumphing badly brought up fool ..

The education is now not possible, it should have been done earlier.