Acabar de – Recent Past

Spanish recent pastWhat just happened? You can explain what happened in the recent past with the construction acabar de + infinitive, the Spanish equivalent of “to have just done.”

   

Conditional Mood

Spanish conditionalThe conditional is a verb mood used for actions that are not guaranteed to occur, often because they are dependent on certain conditions. It is equivalent to "would" in English.

   

Conditional Perfect

Spanish conditional perfectTo talk about something that would, could, or should have happened—but didn’t—you need the conditional perfect, also known as the past conditional.

   

Conditional Progressive

Spanish conditional progressiveThe Spanish conditional progressive is very similar to its English counterpart (would be + -ing). In both languages, the conditional progressive expresses an action that would be in progress at a certain point in time.

   

Future Perfect

Spanish future perfectWouldn’t it be nice if you could plan a perfect future? Too bad that’s not what the future perfect tense does. The grammatical term “perfect” means “completed,” so the future perfect is used to talk about something that will have happened or will have been completed at some point in the future.

   

Future Progressive

Spanish future progressiveThe Spanish future progressive is very similar to its English counterpart (will be + -ing). In both languages, the future progressive expresses an action that will be in progress at a certain point in the future.

   

Future Subjunctive

SubjuntivoThe future subjunctive is supposed to be used in Spanish when a verb or expression requiring the subjunctive in the main clause is in the present or future and refers to a future action.

   

Future Tense

Spanish future tenseIn English, we use the modal “will” plus a verb to talk about actions that will take place in the future, but in Spanish there’s a future tense with a full set of conjugations for every verb. The uses of these two constructions are very similar.

   

Gerund

The English gerund is the -ing form of the verb. In Spanish, it’s the –ndo form.

   

Idiomatic Pronominal Verbs

Spanish pronominal verbsSeveral dozen verbs require a reflexive pronoun but are neither reflexive nor reciprocal. These verbs use the reflexive pronoun to create a meaning different from (though often related to) the meaning of their non-pronominal siblings.