proteger means: to protect, to defend, to embosom, to enshroud, to secure, to snug
Click to see all conjugation charts of proteger in every tense

In this conjugation lesson we will learn how to conjugate the verb proteger in the Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto tense of the Subjuntivo mood. It means we will see step by step how to create and translate forms of each grammatical person.

How to translate Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto to English

Note that the English phrases provided below next to each conjugation are not direct translations from Spanish to English. They are usually the closest general equivalents. The example differences are:

• In Spanish conjugation, there is the form usted in the third person singular. But this person does not translate to the English third person singular. It translates to the so called formal you and uses the inflected form which is most often represented as he/she/it in English conjugation charts.
• Similar situation happens in the third person plural, where ustedes translates to the English plural formal you but uses the form which corresponds to the they form in English.
• Tenses are used differently in Spanish and English, so the actual translation should always take into account the context and focus on translating the meaning, not just words.
• In both languages each verb may have multiple meanings and not every meaning translates directly to the other language. Here also, the context and focusing on the particular meaning helps to create the most accurate translation.

Step by step instructions

Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto is a compound tense (Spanish: compuesto). It means that all of its inflected forms consist of two words. In Spanish language, there are also simple tenses, where each conjugated verb form is one word long.

In a compound tense the endings of the auxiliary verb change, not the endings of the main verb, which is the case in Spanish simple tenses.In the compound tenses, every person’s form consist of two parts:

• An inflected form of the auxiliary verb haber. In case of the Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Subjuntivo tense, we use the Presente de Subjuntivo (Present Subjunctive) conjugation of haber
• Past Participle, which is always the same in every compound tense for a given verb

Refer to the conjugation charts to learn how to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber. That’s a separate topic, so for brevity we are focusing on the parts derived from proteger only in this lesson.In order to create the Participio form, we need a stem and an ending. We use the stem of the infinitive of the main verb, and a single ending, which depends on the conjugation group of the main verb. So we need to begin by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s really easy to do – just remove two letters from the end of the infinitive to get the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem.So in case of the verb proteger it’s easy to see that:

• the stem is: proteg-
• and the ending is: -er

Based on the ending of the infinitive we can recognize that proteger belongs to the -er verb group. This group, in turn, uses the -ido ending in its Participio form. Putting all that together, our Participio is: protegido.

Now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, we can proceed with creating the final conjugation forms. In order to create the first person singular form, we simply take the first person singular form of haber conjugated in Presente de Subjuntivo, which is haya. To that we add the Participio protegido to get haya protegido:

• yo haya protegido – I have protected

Next, to create the form for the second person singular, we again need to take the second person singular form of haber from the Presente de Subjuntivo tense, and it is hayas. To this auxiliary verb we add the Participio protegido (so the exact same word as previously) to get hayas protegido:

• tú hayas protegido – you have protected

Similarly, if we want to create the form for the third person singular, we conjugate haber in the Presente tense and we use the corresponding person’s form (third person singular), namely haya. Then we also take the same Participio as for all other persons, and putting them together we get haya protegido:

• él haya protegido – he have protected
• ella haya protegido – she have protected
• usted haya protegido – (formal) you have protected

The first person plural has the form hayamos protegido. It’s created by following the same logic as in the other persons. We first take the form of the first person plural from haber conjugation in the Presente de Subjuntivo tense: hayamos. Second, to this word we again add the Participio of proteger: protegido to get hayamos protegido:

• nosotros hayamos protegido – we have protected
• nosotras hayamos protegido – (feminine) we have protected

Again, let’s do the same for the second person plural. We need to get the conjugated form of the verb haber in the Presente de Subjuntivo tense, second person plural, and it’s hayáis. Next, we take our unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get hayáis protegido:

• vosotros hayáis protegido – (plural) you have protected
• vosotras hayáis protegido – (feminine, plural) you have protected

And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form hayan protegido. We create it in the exact same manner as in all the other grammatical persons. We need the third person plural of haber first, from its Presente conjugation. It is hayan. We add the Participio of proteger again (protegido) to get hayan protegido:

• ellos hayan protegido – they have protected
• ellas hayan protegido – (feminine) they have protected
• ustedes hayan protegido – (formal, plural) you have protected

¡Ya está! The conjugation is now done. The final result looks as follows:

yo	haya protegido	I have protected
tú	hayas protegido	you have protected
él/ella/usted	haya protegido	he/she/it have protected
nosotros/nosotras	hayamos protegido	we have protected
vosotros/vosotras	hayáis protegido	you have protected
ellos/ellas/ustedes	hayan protegido	they have protected

Click to see all conjugation charts of proteger in every tense
But do not end your session yet – it is very important to repeat and practice the material in order to remember it. Check below for some links.

Next Steps to Perfection To practice this conjugation and test your skills try this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game To see other conjugation lessons for this verb choose another tense: PresentePretéritoImperfectoCondicionalFuturoPretérito Perfecto CompuestoPretérito PluscuamperfectoFuturo PerfectoCondicional PerfectoPretérito Pluscuamperfecto A (subjuntivo)Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto B (subjuntivo)Futuro Perfecto (subjuntivo)  For exercises and examples related to proteger visit our Exercise section To see conjugation charts in all tenses for proteger visit the Conjugator To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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