Tiempo compuesto

Spanish compound tense

Written by qualified Spanish expert Inma Sánchez BA
Last updated: 2021-07-28

In Spanish there are two main groups of tenses: simple tenses and compound tenses.

Compound tenses are tenses where the verb is made of two words:

an auxiliary verb (haber) in a specific simple tense (Presente, Pasado, Futuro...)
+ 
the past participle of the main verb

For example:

Yo he comido - I have eaten
Tú has comido - You have eaten
Él ha comido - He has eaten
Nosotros hemos comido -We have eaten
Vosotros habéis comido - You have eaten
Ellos han comido - They have eaten

There are 8 types of compound tenses in Spanish:

  1. Pretérito Perfecto
  2. Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto
  3. Pretérito Anterior
  4. Futuro perfecto
  5. Condicional perfecto
  6. Pretérito Perfecto de subjuntivo
  7. Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo
  8. Futuro Perfecto de subjuntivo 

To learn about simple tenses see Tiempo simple 

Lessons with more detail on Tiempo compuesto

Conjugate hacer, escribir, ver, decir, poner in the pluperfect tense in Spanish (El Pluscuamperfecto)
Spanish modal verb deber in the conditional simple + haber + participle = should have
Conjugate Spanish regular -ar, -er and -ir verbs in present perfect subjunctive tense in Spanish (El Pretérito Perfecto de Subjuntivo)
Conjugate Spanish verbs in the pluperfect subjunctive in Spanish (El Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto de Subjuntivo)
Forming the present perfect progressive tense in Spanish with estar + present participle (El Pretérito Perfecto Progresivo)
Forming the pluperfect progressive tense in Spanish with estar + present participle (El Pluscuamperfecto Progresivo)
Conjugate ser in the present perfect tense in Spanish (El Pretérito Perfecto)
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