How is the conditional formed in German?

To form the conditional in German, the Subjunctive 2 (Konjunktiv 2) is used. The Subjunctive 2 is a mood used to express doubt or uncertainty, which is why it is used for the conditional; we are not stating what is or has happened, but what could or would happen if certain conditions are met. In order to use the conditional in everyday German, it is only necessary to learn a few subjunctive verb forms. The most important verbs in the conditional are "werden", "sein", "haben","geben" and the modal verbs. 

(Show conjugated verb forms on the whiteboard) A good way to learn these verb forms is that they all have umlauts added to the first vowel. "Sie werden" becomes "sie würden", "ich bin" becomes "ich wäre" (this is perhaps the most difficult to recognise at first,) "er hat" becomes "er hätte", "ich kann" becomes "ich könnte" and "es gibt" becomes "es gäbe". 

For most other verbs, you can simply use the subjunctive form of "werden" to mean "would" and an infinitive verb at the end of the sentence or phrase. This is more similar to the English way of forming the conditional. For example: "ich würde diese Schuhe kaufen". However, when using the conditional form of "sein", "haben", "geben" or the modal verbs, the subjunctive form should be used, meaning there is no infinitive at the end of the sentence. For example: "ich würde diese Schuhe kaufen, wenn ich genug Geld hätte", NOT "ich würde diese Schuhe kaufen, wenn ich genug Geld haben würde".