In short

You already build the past with ter + past participle (tenho feito, tinha feito). The same recipe - an auxiliary plus an invariable participle - also reaches into the future, both subjunctives, the gerund and the personal infinitive. This lesson closes the paradigm. Nothing new about the participle is involved; the whole skill is conjugating ter in the right tense or mood and letting the participle ride along, so terei feito, tenha feito, tiver feito, tendo feito and termos feito all fall out of one pattern.

The rule

One recipe, five new slots

Every compound tense in Portuguese is ter (in some tense/mood) + particípio passado. You have met the indicative pairings (pretérito perfeito composto, mais-que-perfeito composto); the remaining ones simply put ter into tenses you have not yet paired it with. The participle never agrees in these compound tenses - it stays in its default masculine-singular form.

Futuro composto do indicativo: terei feito

Conjugate ter in the simple future (terei, terás, terá, teremos, terão) and add the participle. It marks an action that will already be complete before a later future point - English “will have done”:

• Até sexta-feira, terei terminado o relatório.
• Quando chegares, eles já terão saído.

Like the simple future, it can also voice a supposition: Ele não atende; terá adormecido (“he must have fallen asleep”).

Compound subjunctives: tenha feito and tiver feito

Any context that triggers the subjunctive can trigger its compound form when the action is completed.

• Pretérito perfeito composto do conjuntivo - tenha feito (present subjunctive of ter: tenha, tenhas, tenha, tenhamos, tenham). Use it for a completed action inside a subjunctive-selecting clause anchored in the present:
  • Espero que ele tenha chegado a horas.
  • Duvido que eles tenham percebido o problema.
• Futuro composto do conjuntivo - tiver feito (future subjunctive of ter: tiver, tiveres, tiver, tivermos, tiverem). Use it in a temporal or conditional clause (after quando, se, assim que, logo que) for something finished before the main event:
  • Quando tiveres acabado, avisa-me.
  • Se até lá não tiverem respondido, telefono-lhes.

(For the past-unreal pair tivesse feito / teria feito see step 48; here we complete the future and present subjunctive branches.)

Gerúndio composto: tendo feito

The gerund of ter is tendo; with a participle it forms tendo feito - “having done”. It heads a reduced adverbial clause and marks anteriority: the action was finished before the main clause happened.

• Tendo terminado o trabalho, foi para casa.
• Não tendo recebido resposta, insistimos.

Contrast the simple gerund fazendo (Step 47), which is simultaneous: fazendo o trabalho, cantava (while doing) vs tendo feito (after having done).

Infinitivo pessoal composto: termos feito

The personal infinitive (Step 37) also has a compound form: the personal infinitive of ter (ter, teres, ter, termos, terem) plus the participle. It carries a subject through its endings and expresses a completed action, typically after a preposition:

• Lamento não termos avisado a tempo.
• Depois de eles terem saído, arrumámos a sala.

Because the ending shows the person, this keeps the subject explicit in a non-finite clause when the action is already over.

C1 detail: which participle, and no agreement

In a compound tense the participle after ter/haver is invariable: tenho escrito as cartas, never “escritas”. Agreement appears in the ser/estar passive (Step 39): as cartas foram escritas - and in the resultative tenho as cartas escritas (“I have the letters written”), where ter is the full verb “have” and the participle describes the object, so it is not a compound tense at all. For verbs with two participles, the classic rule pairs the regular -ado/-ido form with ter/haver and the short form with ser/estar: tinha aceitado / foi aceite; tinha entregado / está entregue. A few short forms - pago, gasto, ganho - are now standard with ter too (tenho pago, tenho gasto).

Forms & patterns

The recipe across all five new slots (model verb fazer, participle feito):

ter conjugated through each, with the full person set:

Double participles - which form goes where:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Espero que ele já chegou -> Espero que ele já tenha chegado - a subjunctive trigger (espero que) plus a completed action calls for tenha + participle, not the indicative.
• Quando terás acabado, avisa-me -> Quando tiveres acabado, avisa-me - after quando/se/assim que Portuguese uses the future subjunctive (tiver feito), never the future indicative.
• As meninas já tinham chegadas. -> As meninas já tinham chegado. - the participle is invariable after ter, even with a feminine plural subject; it agrees only in the ser/estar passive.
• Fazendo o trabalho, saiu (to mean after finishing) -> Tendo feito o trabalho, saiu - the simple gerund is simultaneous; anteriority needs the compound gerund.
• Por não ter estudado when the subject is “you” -> Por não teres estudado - the compound personal infinitive still takes personal endings (teres, termos, terem).
• Piling on compound tenses in speech -> most of these (futuro composto, gerúndio composto, infinitivo composto) are formal/written; overusing them in casual speech sounds stilted. Only tiver feito is everyday.

Tips

• The recipe never changes: decide the tense or mood the clause needs, put ter in it, and append the invariable participle. You are conjugating one verb, not memorising five tables.
• Let the clause pick the mood of ter. Subjunctive trigger in the present -> tenha feito. Temporal/conditional quando/se about the future -> tiver feito. A completed background action -> tendo feito.
• Participle agreement is a ser/estar thing, not a ter thing. After ter it is frozen; in the passive it agrees with the subject.
• Keep the short participles for ser/estar (aceite, entregue, limpo, morto) and the -ado/-ido forms for ter - except pago, gasto and ganho, which now go with ter too.
• In Brazil: the forms are the same and the futuro composto do conjuntivo is just as alive, but some short participles surface as aceito and pego rather than aceite, and clitic placement around these auxiliaries follows the Brazilian proclisis pattern.