Summary of Tenses
There are nine indicative tenses:
present preterit imperfect future conditional present perfect past perfect future perfect conditional perf. habla he speaks habló he spoke hablaba he was speaking hablará he will speak hablaría he would speak ha hablado he has spoken había hablado he had spoken habrá hablado he will have spoken habría hablado he would have spoken
There’s a trick to keeping the perfect tenses straight. First of all, of course, all four have the past participle (hablado, comido, vivido). Then . . .
The PRESENT perfect is the PRESENT of “haber” (which is irregular) + past participle: The PAST perfect is the PAST (imperfect) tense of “haber” + past participle:
he has ha
hemos habéis + hablado han
había habías había
habíamos habíais + hablado habían
The FUTURE perfect is the FUTURE of “haber” + past participle:
The CONDITIONAL perfect is the CONDITIONAL of “haber” + past part.:
habré habrás habrá
habremos habréis + hablado habrán
habría habrías habría
habríamos habríais + hablado habrían
Also remember that, in English . . . future = will conditional = would
perfect = have, has, or had Therefore, future perfect = will have conditional perfect = would have
Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.
On the next page you’ll find a summary of ALL indicative AND subjunctive tenses.
Indicative
present preterit imperfect future conditional pres.perf. pluperf. future perf. cond. perf.
Translation of Subjunctive both ind. & subj.
he speaks hable he spoke he was speaking hablara* he will speak he would speak he has spoken haya hablado he had spoken hubiera hablado he will have spoken he would have spoken
habla habló hablaba hablará hablaría ha hablado había hablado habrá hablado habría hablado
*Because there is no preterit subjunctive, the imperfect subjunctive serves as the only past tense in the subjunctive and can translate as the imperfect does AND as the preterit does.
Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.