Future and conditional perfect, including guesses about the past

These two compound tenses are built with haber + participle. Their basic meanings are easy; the interesting part is how Spanish uses them to guess.

Forms

Haber has the irregular stem habr- in both. Irregular participles are as usual (Irregular participles: hecho, dicho, visto, escrito, puesto): habrá hecho, habrían dicho, habremos vuelto.

Future perfect: will have done

Something that will be complete before a point in the future, often with para + time, dentro de or cuando + subjunctive.

• Para el verano habremos terminado la reforma.By the summer we'll have finished the renovation.
• Cuando vuelvas, ya habré hecho la cena.When you get back, I'll have made dinner.

Future perfect for guesses about the recent past

At B1 you used the simple future to guess about the present: Serán las diez = It's probably ten (The future for guesses: Serán las diez). The future perfect does the same for something that has happened: English must have, will have, probably has.

• No contesta porque se habrá quedado sin batería.She's not answering, probably because her battery has died.
• Ya habrán cerrado el banco a estas horas.The bank will have closed by now.
• ¿Dónde habré dejado las gafas?Where can I have left my glasses?

Conditional perfect: would have done

The result of an imaginary past (Past hypotheses: si hubiera sabido, habría venido), advice after the fact, and reproaches with poder or deber.

• Yo en tu lugar no habría dimitido.In your position, I wouldn't have resigned.
• Habrías podido avisarme antes.You could have warned me earlier.

It is also the "future in the past": what someone said would have happened by a later point.

• Dijo que para el lunes habría enviado el presupuesto.He said he would have sent the estimate by Monday.

Conditional perfect for guesses about an earlier past

One step further back: a guess about something that had happened before a past moment.

• Cuando llegamos no había nadie fuera, así que el concierto ya habría empezado.When we arrived there was nobody outside, so the concert must already have started.

Summary of guessing

Latin America

The forms are the same. The future perfect for guesses (habrá salido) is used too, but because the preterite is preferred for recent events, many speakers guess with deber (de) + perfect infinitive (Debe de haber salido) or with an adverb + preterite (Seguramente salió). Both are common in Spain as well.

Common mistakes

• Using the future (estará) to guess about a finished past moment: for "she was probably tired on Saturday" say Estaría cansada, not Estará cansada (which guesses about now).
• Reading Habrá llegado as a pure future: here it usually means "he must have arrived (by now)".
• habrá ponido, habría abrido: irregular participles: puesto, abierto.
• Si habría sabido: the conditional perfect belongs in the result clause, not after si.