Future & conditional perfect
B2 El futuro y el condicional compuestos 47 / 49
In short
These are the compound (two-word) tenses built from haber + past participle. Conjugate haber in the future (habré), the conditional (habría), or the subjunctive (haya, hubiera); the participle never changes. They express “will have / would have done” and complete the si-conditional system.
The rule
Every tense here is one recipe: conjugate haber, then add the invariable past participle (-ado / -ido, plus the irregulars hecho, dicho, visto, escrito, puesto, vuelto…). Only the tense of haber changes the meaning.
- Futuro perfecto - habré + participle (“will have done”). Two uses: an action finished before another future point, and probability about a recent past (English “must have / will have”):
- Para las ocho ya habré terminado. (By eight I will have finished.)
- ¿Dónde está Ana? - Habrá salido. (Where is Ana? - She must have gone out.)
- Condicional perfecto - habría + participle (“would have done”). The result of an unreal past condition, plus politeness, probability in the past, and a future perfect reported from a past moment (Lesson 44):
- Yo que tú, no habría dicho eso. (If I were you, I would not have said that.)
- Habrían salido ya cuando llamaste. (They had probably already left when you called.)
- Dice que para el lunes habrá terminado -> Dijo que para el lunes habría terminado. (He says he will have finished by Monday -> He said he would have finished by Monday.) - reported, not unreal.
- Pretérito perfecto de subjuntivo - haya + participle. The subjunctive counterpart of the present perfect; used after a subjunctive trigger for something completed / before now:
- Espero que hayas dormido bien. (I hope you slept well.)
- Cuando hayas terminado, avísame. (When you have finished, let me know.)
- Pretérito pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo - hubiera/hubiese + participle. This drives the unreal past si-clause - the “third conditional” - and it is also what a subjunctive trigger takes when its main verb is past (present trigger -> haya, past trigger -> hubiera):
- Si hubiera sabido, te habría llamado. (If I had known, I would have called you.)
- Me alegré de que hubieras llegado bien. (I was glad you had arrived safely.)
The two unreal conditionals side by side. Present-unreal (Lesson 46) uses the imperfect subjunctive + conditional; past-unreal uses the pluperfect subjunctive + conditional perfect. In the result clause of the past-unreal, habría and hubiera are both correct (Si lo hubiera sabido, habría / hubiera venido).
Forms & patterns
The four haber sets - just add a participle to any cell:
| Person | Futuro perf. | Condicional perf. | Perf. de subj. | Plusc. de subj. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| yo | habré | habría | haya | hubiera / hubiese |
| tú | habrás | habrías | hayas | hubieras / hubieses |
| usted, él/ella | habrá | habría | haya | hubiera / hubiese |
| nosotros/-as | habremos | habríamos | hayamos | hubiéramos / hubiésemos |
| vosotros/-as | habréis | habríais | hayáis | hubierais / hubieseis |
| ustedes, ellos/-as | habrán | habrían | hayan | hubieran / hubiesen |
The unreal si-system at a glance:
| Time frame | Si-clause (condition) | Main clause (result) |
|---|---|---|
| Present / general (L46) | si + imperfect subj. - Si tuviera… | conditional - viajaría |
| Past (L47) | si + pluperfect subj. - Si hubiera tenido… | conditional perfect - habría viajado |
Examples
| Español | English |
|---|---|
| Para mañana ya habré terminado el informe. | By tomorrow I will have finished the report. |
| No contesta; habrá salido a comer. | He isn’t answering; he must have gone out to eat. |
| Yo que tú, no habría firmado ese contrato. | If I were you, I would not have signed that contract. |
| Si hubiéramos salido antes, no habríamos perdido el tren. | If we had left earlier, we would not have missed the train. |
| Espero que hayas dormido bien. | I hope you slept well. |
| No creo que hayan llegado todavía. | I do not think they have arrived yet. |
| Si me lo hubieras dicho, te habría ayudado. | If you had told me, I would have helped you. |
| Cuando hayas acabado, cierra la puerta. | When you have finished, close the door. |
Common mistakes
- Si habría sabido… -> Si hubiera sabido… - the si-clause of a past-unreal sentence takes the pluperfect subjunctive (hubiera), never the conditional (habría).
- Ya habré terminada -> Ya habré terminado - the participle after haber never agrees; it always ends in -o.
- Espero que ha llegado -> Espero que haya llegado - a subjunctive trigger needs the subjunctive auxiliary haya, not the indicative ha.
- Me alegré de que hayas llegado -> Me alegré de que hubieras llegado - a past main verb pushes the subjunctive auxiliary back to hubiera (the sequence of tenses of Lesson 46), even with no si in sight.
- No sé, ha salido (as a guess) -> habrá salido - use the future perfect to conjecture about a recent past (“she must have left”).
- Habré ya terminado -> Ya habré terminado / Habré terminado ya - nothing may come between haber and its participle.
- Si hubiera sabido, habría venido is fine, but so is hubiera venido - the result clause allows either; do not “correct” one to the other.
Tips
- Learn the four haber rows and every compound tense falls out of them - the participle is shared and frozen.
- Third-conditional shape to memorize: Si hubiera + participle, habría + participle (“If I had…, I would have…”).
- habrá / habría + participle is the natural way to guess: habrá salido = “she must have left” (recent); habría salido = the same guess about a moment further back.
- Peninsular Spanish often uses hubiera for habría in the result clause (Si lo hubiera sabido, hubiera venido) - both are standard.
- Irregular participles carry over unchanged: habré hecho, habría dicho, haya visto, hubiera escrito.