saber means: to know
In this lesson we will learn how to conjugate the verb saber in the Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto tense of the Subjuntivo mood. It means we will see step by step how to create the following conjugation:
| yo | haya sabido | I have known |
| tú | hayas sabido | you have known |
| él/ella/usted | haya sabido | he/she/it have known |
| nosotros/nosotras | hayamos sabido | we have known |
| vosotros/vosotras | hayáis sabido | you have known |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | hayan sabido | they have known |
How to translate Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto to English
Notice that the English phrases in the third column of the above conjugation table are not direct translations from Spanish to English. They are usually the closest general equivalents. The example differences are:- In Spanish, 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 inflected verb form is one word long. A compound tense is indicated by the ending of the auxiliary verb, not by the ending of the main verb, which is the case in Spanish simple tenses. In the compound tenses, every person’s form consist of two parts:
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| See 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 saber only here. 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 start by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s really easy to do – simply remove two letters from the end of the infinitive and you have the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem. So in case of the verb saber it’s easy to see that:
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| Based on the ending of the infinitive we can recognize that saber 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: sabido. And now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, let’s move on with creating the final conjugation forms. |
In order to create the first person singular form, we need to take the first person singular form of haber conjugated in Presente de Subjuntivo, which is haya. To that we add the Participio sabido to get haya sabido:
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 sabido (so the exact same word as previously) to get hayas sabido:
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Similarly, if we want to create the form for the third person singular, we conjugate haber in the Presente tense and we utilize 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 sabido:
The first person plural has the form hayamos sabido. 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 saber: sabido to get hayamos sabido:
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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 the unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get hayáis sabido:
And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form hayan sabido. 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 saber again (sabido) to get hayan sabido:
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¡Ya está! The conjugation is now complete. But don’t end your session yet – it’s important to repeat and practice the material in order to remember it. Check below for some links.
Next Steps
- To practice this conjugation and test your skills try this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game
- For exercises and examples related to saber visit our Exercise section
- To see conjugation charts in all tenses for saber visit the Conjugator
- To explore other learning materials visit the Study section
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