The conditional is not strictly a tense, but a verb mood. It can be used on its own, particularly as a polite way of expressing a request: Le dispiacerebbe aprire la finestra? ‘Would you mind opening the window?’. It can also be used in conditional sentences, where the meaning of the main sentence is dependent on some condition being fulfilled: Andrei in vacanza anch’io, se avessi tempo ‘I would go on holiday too if I had the time’.