Conjugating the Spanish Verb Haber (to Have)

Spanish verbs fall into different groups, and each group is conjugated a little differently. Haber (ah-bvehr) (to have) is used only with compound tenses. It serves as a helping verb that completes an action; the action is expressed with the past participle. With the addition of haber, a verb in the past tense becomes more past, a conditional statement can be completed, and a future action can be finished. Haber turns did into had done, would into would have, and will into will have.

Haber is a verb that sometimes acts like a regular -er verb, and other times it acts like an irregular verb. All seven tenses of haber are included here to aid your understanding of compound tenses.

When you add a past participle to the present tense of haber, you form the present perfect tense. Here’s haber conjugated in the present tense:

The following examples show you haber in action in the present perfect tense:

• Ella ha sido mi major amiga hace mucho tiempo. (She has been my best friend for a long time.)

• Yo he leído aquel libro diez veces. (I have read that book ten times.)

The preterit tense of haber is used to form the preterit perfect tense of any verb. Haber has an irregular conjugation in the preterit tense, so you need to memorize the conjugations in the following table:

You use haber in the preterit perfect tense like this:

• Una vez que hubimos visto toda la película, salimos del cine. (Once we had seen all of the movie, we left the theater.)

• Tan pronto como ellos hubieron terminado el trabajo, recibieron el dinero. (As soon as they had finished the work, they received the money.)

The imperfect tense of haber is used to form the pluperfect tense of any verb. It follows the regular conjugation for -er verbs in the imperfect. Here’s how it’s conjugated:

Here are some examples of the pluperfect tense:

• Él nos había llamado antes de la fiesta. (He had called before the party.)

• Los estudiantes habían practicado por dos horas antes del partido de fútbol. (The students had practiced two hours before the soccer game.)

When you get to the present perfect tense, you use the future tense of haber, and this is one time when haber decides to conjugate irregularly. The stem morphs into habr-, and then you add the regular future verb endings. The following chart shows you how it’s done.

The following samples put the future perfect tense to work:

• Ella habría enseñado por trienta y cinco años para el fin de este año. (She will have taught for 35 years at the end of this year.)

• Los estudiantes habrán vendido todas las galletas dulces para el viernes. (The students will have sold all of the cookies by Friday.)

The conditional tense of haber is used to form — what else? — the conditional perfect tense. The great thing about this is that if you’ve mastered the future tense of haber, the conditional tense should be a piece of cake. Why? Because you use the irregular verb stem habr- and add the conditional verb endings. Here’s how it goes:

The following samples use the conditional perfect tense:

• Felipe habría gastado más dinero si lo tuviera. (Felipe would have spent more money if he’d had it.)

• Nuestro equipo habría ganado, pero los dos mejores jugadores estaban enfermos. (Our team would have won, but our two best players were sick.)

The present perfect subjunctive tense relies on haber conjugated in the present subjunctive. The following table shows the present subjunctive conjugation of haber:

The following samples illustrate how the present perfect subjunctive tense works:

• Espero que ellos hayan terminado su trabajo a tiempo. (I hope that they have finished their work on time.)

• El entrenador no está seguro de que su equipo haya practicado suficiente. (The coach isn’t sure that his team has practiced enough.)

The pluperfect subjunctive tense uses the imperfect tense of haber. Don’t forget to switch the stem to hub-. Check out the following chart to see how the conjugation goes:

Here are some example sentences using the pluperfect subjunctive tense:

• Ella no estaba segura de que ellos hubieran comprador el tamaño correcto. (She wasn’t sure that they had bought the correct size.)

• Ellos esperaban que el paquete hubiera llegado. (They hoped that the package had arrived.)