When we want to express existence in Spanish and we are speaking about the present, there is no doubt we will use hay [there is / there are]. However, it is not always clear for every Spanish learner which form of the verb HABER [to be] we should use when speaking about the past or the future.
In this lesson you will learn which form of the Spanish verb HABER to use in each situation.
A few days ago, when I was speaking with a Spanish learner from Australia, he said "habían muchas cosas" in Spanish, when trying to express "there were many things".
When he really should have said :
• Había muchas cosas. [There were many things.]
Why may we feel like using the plural form of HABER?
It is obvious that a native English speaker will tend to want to use a plural form of the verb to express “there were”. However, this doesn’t only happen to non-native Spanish learners, but also to native Spanish speakers.
But, why is it wrong to use the plural form when expressing existence?
HABER has no subject
When expressing existence, the Spanish verb HABER behaves as an impersonal verb. This means it actually has no subject.
When we say something like:
• Hay una fuente en el parque. [There is a fountain at the park.]
While in English, “a fountain” is the subject of the sentence, in Spanish una fuente is not the subject, but the direct object.
There is no grammatical subject in this kind of Spanish structures, and the part that is considered the subject in English is considered the direct object in Spanish.
And, since there is no subject, there is no reason for the verb to be conjugated in different forms.
3rd person - singular form
There are several impersonal verbs in Spanish that you may be familiar with in Spanish.
Take, for example, the Spanish verb LLOVER [to rain].
You probably have noticed that, whenever we use this verb, we always use the 3rd person-singular form:
• En Escocia llueve mucho. [It rains a lot in Scotland.]
• Ayer llovió durante todo el día. [Yesterday it rained during the whole day.]
The same happens with HABER: we always use the 3rd person - singular form. And, in the past, that is había [there was / there were]. Habían is actually the 3rd person - plural form of the imperfect tense.
How to use the conjugation of HABER
You may be wondering what happens to the other forms in the imperfect tense conjugation of HABER that I have just presented.
To explain this, let’s take the present tense conjugation:
We have already seen that, when expressing existence in the present in Spanish, we always use hay [there is / there are].
However, there are other six forms in the present tense conjugation of HABER [to be]:
| HABER | PRESENT TENSE - indicative |
|---|---|
| yo | he |
| tú | has |
| él, ella / usted | ha |
| nosotros, nosotras | hemos |
| vosotros, vosotras | habéis |
| ellos, ellas / ustedes | han |
And you are probably familiar with these forms. These are the words that we use to form the present perfect tense conjugation. For example:
• Hoy he trabajado mucho. [I have worked a lot today.]
• ¿Dónde has estado? [Were have you been?]
• María ha bebido café. [María has drunk coffee.]
HABER is also an auxiliary verb that we use to form different compound tenses in Spanish.
The present tense is used to form the present perfect tense:
| BEBER | PRESENT PERFECT TENSE - indicative |
|---|---|
| yo | he bebido |
| tú | has bebido |
| él, ella / usted | ha bebido |
| nosotros, nosotras | hemos bebido |
| vosotros, vosotras | habéis bebido |
| ellos, ellas / ustedes | han bebido |
The imperfect tense is used to form the past perfect tense:
| BEBER | PAST PERFECT TENSE - indicative |
|---|---|
| yo | había bebido |
| tú | habías bebido |
| él, ella / usted | había bebido |
| nosotros, nosotras | habíamos bebido |
| vosotros, vosotras | habíais bebido |
| ellos, ellas / ustedes | habían bebido |
The problem is that in this case we don’t have two different forms of the 3rd person - singular, as it happens in the present tense.
That is why nobody gets confused when speaking about existence in the present, but many people do when speaking about existence in the past.
But now you know: Whether you want to say “there was” or “there were" in Spanish, use always the singular form había.
Talking about existence in the future in Spanish
We tend to use the Spanish verb HABER much less to express existence in the future but, when we do, many people make the same mistake we are talking about.
In stead of saying, for example:
• En la fiesta habrá muchos músicos. [There will be many musicians at the party.]
They say:
• En la fiesta habrán* muchos músicos. *INCORRECT
The problem is once more, that there is also a 3rd person-plural form (habrán) that we use to form the future perfect tense, and we feel like using it:
| BEBER | FUTURE PERFECT TENSE - indicative |
|---|---|
| yo | habré bebido |
| tú | habrás bebido |
| él, ella / usted | habrá bebido |
| nosotros, nosotras | habremos bebido |
| vosotros, vosotras | habréis bebido |
| ellos, ellas / ustedes | habrán bebido |
Check the forms of HABER that we use to express existence.
I hope that this explanation about the use of Spanish verb HABER was helpful.
If you have questions related to the Spanish language, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’ll be happy to answer them.