Present Tense Conjugations of Haber (Part 1)

In this video, we cover the present tense of Haber. There are two main uses of the present tense: to say you “have done” something, and to say “there is” and “there are”. Follow along to master these common forms!

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Read: Top 10 Conjugations of Haber

Let’s start with just a list of the top 10 forms of Haber.

We chose these words based on a frequency analysis of Spanish spoken by native Spanish speakers. According to this analysis, there are about 500 words that make up over 67% of all words spoken in Spanish. And that list of 500 words includes only 10 forms of Haber. 

That list includes six present tense forms, a past tense form, the infinitive, and two subjunctive forms.

• hay
• ha
• he
• has
• han
• había
• haber
• hemos
• haya
• hubiera

In this guide, we’re just going to focus on the six present-tense conjugations. We’ll tackle the rest in Part 2, our next video guide.

Let’s dive in and start practicing Haber.

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Haber & The Past Participle 

In order to practice using Haber, we have to use other verbs along with it.

Now, that might sound confusing, but the good news is that you already know how this works, because we do the exact same thing in English.

Check out this English sentence:

• I have been here.

Here’s the question: What does the word “have” mean here? We aren’t using this word to mean that we “have” something. Instead, it’s a helping verb, meaning that it’s helping the other verb, “been”, which comes from the verb “to be” — we use the verb “have” to help put “to be” in the past.

The same thing happens in Spanish. Here’s how you’d say that sentence:

• Yo he estado aquí.

We used the word he, which means “have” as in “I have”. Then we use the word estado, which comes from the verb Estar, our verb for “being” somewhere. What I’m saying here is that I have “been” somewhere, and we’re just using the word for “have”, or he, to help us say that.

Here’s another example, and we’ll change it from “I have” to “she has”.

• She has been here.
• Ella ha estado aquí.

As you can see, in English, we changed the word from “have” to “has”, because we changed what person we’re talking about. In Spanish, we had to change it from he, the word for “I have”, to ha, which is the word for “he/she has”.

Here’s another example:

• My friend has done that.
• Mi amigo ha hecho eso.

For this one, we used the word hecho, which means “done”; this comes from the verb Hacer, our verb for “to do”. So we’re using Haber to put Hacer in the past. Here are a couple more examples:

He has done that. → Él ha hecho eso.

I have done those things. → Yo he hecho esas cosas.

Let’s get some practice with this. I’m going to give you some English sentences, and you should try to guess how to fill in the blanks in Spanish. We’ll use examples of he, ha, hecho, and estado. Try to predict the Spanish: 

1. I have done that many times. → Yo ____ eso muchas veces.
2. He has done that. → Él ____ eso.
3. I have been there once. → Yo ____ allí una vez.
4. My friend has been here. → Mi amigo ____ aquí. 

ANSWERS:

1. he hecho
2. ha hecho
3. he estado 
4. ha estado

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Haber vs. Tener

Now that we’ve looked at how Haber works as a helping verb, we need to clear up a common source of confusion for Spanish learners.

In English, we use the word have in a lot of different ways. For example:

• I have done that.
• I have a dog.

Both use the word “have,” but in Spanish, we translate them completely differently.

In “I have done that,” have is a helping verb; we’re using it to put “done” in the past. So this becomes:

• I have done that.  →  Yo he hecho eso.

But in “I have a dog,” have means to possess something. So we’ll use a totally different verb, the verb Tener.

• I have a dog. → Yo tengo un perro.

So even though both of the English sentences use “I have”, you treat them as two different Spanish verbs.

Here’s another example using “she has”.

• She has done that. → Ella ha hecho eso.
• She has those things. → Ella tiene esas cosas.

If you want to dive into the verb Tener, check out this other guide: Top 10 Forms of Tener

For now, let’s get some practice choosing between these two verbs. Try to predict whether you’ll use Haber or Tener in each of these sentences.

1. I have been there. → Yo ____ estado allí.
2. I have a friend there. → Yo ____ un amigo allí.
3. He has two brothers. → Él ____ dos hermanos.
4. He has done that. → Él ___ hecho eso.
5. She has two dogs. → Ella ____ dos perros.

ANSWERS:

1. he
2. tengo
3. tiene
4. ha
5. tiene

These might feel a little tricky, but it will become automatic over time if you keep practicing switching between Tener and Haber.

Let’s keep going and learn some more conjugations of Haber.

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More Haber Conjugations

So far we know how to say:

• I have: yo he
• he/she has: él/ella ha

Next, let’s add:

• You have: tú has 
• They have: ellos han
• We have: nostros hemos

Here are some examples:

• You have done that.→ Tú has hecho eso.
• They have been here. → Ellos han estado aquí.
• We have been at home. → Nosotros hemos estado en casa.

If you need more help keeping these straight, here’s a quick trick. On a sheet of paper, write out a list like this:

• I have:
• he/she has:
• you have:
• they have:
• we have:

Then see if you can write the correct conjugations from memory.

• I have: he
• he/she has: ha
• you have: has
• they have: han
• we have: hemos

If you did that and got these right, let’s get some practice with them! Try to predict the right one in each of these sentences.

1. You have been there. →  Tú ____ estado allí.
2. They have done all the work. →  Ellos ____ hecho todo el trabajo. 
3. She has been in México. →  Ella ____ estado en México. 
4. We have done this many times. →  Nosotros ____ hecho esto muchas veces.

ANSWERS

1. has 
2. han
3. ha
4. hemos

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Present Tense of Haber: Hay

So far, we’ve covered five present-tense forms of Haber. But Haber actually has another present-tense form that’s used in a totally different way.

If you’ve followed along to our other guides about verbs, you probably remember that most verbs have five standard present-tense forms, and each one refers to a different person: “I” versus “he/she” versus “we” versus “you” versus “they”.

But Haber has a different form, and it makes it unlike any other verb in Spanish. It’s the word hay.

Hay doesn’t refer to any person in particular. It also isn’t used along with other verbs to put something in the past! Instead, it means something totally different.

The word hay means: “there is” and “there are”.

Here are a couple of examples:

• There is someone in my house. → Hay alguien en mi casa.
• There are many things here.  Hay muchas cosas aquí.

So hang on a second. If this word is used in a totally different way from the other forms that we’ve learned… why do we consider it a conjugation of Haber at all? It seems totally unrelated.

Well, there IS a reason that hay is considered a form of Haber, and you’ll see why in Part 2 in the next video.

For now, let’s just work on hay and explore how to use it.

Let’s look at these sentences again:

• There is someone in my house. → Hay alguien en mi casa.
• There are many things here. → Hay muchas cosas aquí.

In English, when we say things like “there is” and “there are”, what do we actually mean? We’re not really talking about where something is, in terms of location — instead, we’re talking about existence. That’s exactly what hay means in Spanish. It’s the word you use to say something exists in a particular place.

Here are a couple more examples:

• There is something else here. → Hay algo más aquí.
• There are many people in the world. → Hay muchas personas en el mundo.

If you want to dive deeper into how the word hay works — and some of the weird things it does in other tenses — check out Lesson 48 of our free course. That lesson goes into much more detail on why hay is one of the strangest (but most useful) words in Spanish.

For now, let’s do a quick quiz on everything we’ve learned today. Try to predict the right version of Haber in each of these sentences.

1. She has done this. → Ella ____ hecho esto.
2. We have been there. → Nosotros ____ estado allí.
3. There are two dogs here. →  ____ dos perros aquí.
4. They have done that. → Ellos ____ hecho eso.
5. You have done this → Tú ____ hecho esto.
6. There is a book on the table. → ____ un libro en la mesa. 
7. She has done that. → Ella ____ hecho eso.

ANSWERS:

1. ha
2. hemos
3. Hay 
4. han
5. has
6. Hay
7. ha
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Get More Practice with Haber!

Ready to dive deeper into Haber?

To practice Haber in all the different ways we learned in this article, just go to our free course by clicking here. This will let you dive deeper into Haber and all of its essential conjugations, including with digital flashcards and audio quizzes.

This course is a full system, full of evidence-based study tools designed to make everything stick. You can dive into Haber in Lesson 36 and Lesson 48 of that course.