Lesson 54: Verbs after 'haber' as adjectives (explaining words)
We've talked before about how any verb that comes after 'haber' is changed in a particular way, no matter what form of 'haber' - past, present or future.
Now we'll look at a trick that will give us thousands of new words of vocab!
But first let's recap how verbs that come after 'haber' change:
- with 'ar' verbs we take off the 'ar' and add 'ado'
- with 'ir'/'er' verbs we take off the 'ir'/'er' and add 'ido'
 Spanish |  English |
|---|---|
| Lo habré perdido | I will have lost it |
| Me gustaría haber ido | I would like (it would like) to have gone |
Now in many, many cases we can use this form of the verb as an adjective, an explaining word like "closed", "lost", etc.
If you think about it this is exactly what happens in English:
- "I have sold it" - "It is sold"
- "I have lost it" - "It is lost"
So let's try this out with 'cerrar' - "to close". We take the 'ar' off and add 'ado' and we get 'cerrado' - "closed" but don't forget that as an adjective that ends in 'o' that 'o' is going to change to an 'a' if we talk about a feminine thing.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Lo he cerrado | I have closed it |
| La he cerrado | I have closed it (feminine thing) |
| Está cerrada | It is closed (feminine thing) |
Note here we're using 'estar' as the form of "to be" because in almost all cases an adjective - a word used to describe something - is a state rather than a characteristic. It explains how something is at that moment but not necessarily how it is all the time.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Estoy perdido | I am lost |
| He terminado | I have finished |
| Está terminado | It is finished |
| Está terminada | It is finished (feminine thing) |
| Están vendidos | They are sold |
Working backwords to find verbs
So if we know how to change a verb to make it an adjective if we come across adjectives which end 'ado' we can work out the verb.
We covered 'cansado' - "tired" - in an earlier lesson. If we take off the 'ado' and add the 'ar' we get 'cansar - "to tire" which we can then use.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Me canso | I get tired / I get fed up |
| Me he cansado | I (have) got tired / I got fed up |
| Estoy cansada | I am tired (female talking) |
Doing this backward and forward changes to any verb you come across is a great mental excercise for learning a verb and extending vocabularly so do take the time to try it when you come across a new verb or a new adjective. It won't work every time but its the exercise that helps the mind!
Now when we think about it these descriptions can have wide uses:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Está cerrado a la idea | He is closed to the idea |
| Es una persona cerrada | He is a closed person |
Note we're using 'cerrada' (not 'cerrado') because even though we are talking about "him" the word for "person" is feminine and that is the "thing" we are actually talking about. What we are really saying is "He is a person ... that is closed"
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Está perdida | She is lost |
| Es una persona perdida | She is a lost person |
Lets look at this difference between using 'Estar' or 'Ser' in more detail because it can be confusing.
- "It's a wet chair" - sounds like a state but we are describing the chair - "It is a chair that is wet" - so we use 'ser'
- "It is wet" - now the state is central to the sentence and so the state is the most important thing in the sentence therefore we use 'estar'
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| La silla está mojada | The chair is wet |
| Es una silla mojada | It is a wet chair |
| Es una persona feliz | It is a happy person |