Complete Spanish

Track 55

1. Irregular forms after haber Rule

Some verbs do not take -ado or -ido at all. These five are the ones to know, and each doubles as an adjective in the usual way.

romper → roto
to break → broken
morir → muerto
to die → dead
abrir → abierto
to open → open
decir → dicho
to say → said
hacer → hecho
to do, make → done, made

Dicho and hecho are nice to learn together, since both take that /ch/ sound. Abrir has no h, despite the sound.

Lo he roto · Los he roto · Se ha roto · Está roto · Está rota · Ha muerto · Está muerto · Lo he abierto · Están abiertos · Lo he dicho · Le he dicho · Lo he hecho · Está hecho

2. Some of these forms are also nouns Vocabulary

You have seen a verb's noun hiding in the "to" form and the "I" form. Here it is in the after-haber form.

un dicho
a saying
un hecho
a fact

You will see hecho en China, made in China, on products, which is a good reminder of the adjective.

3. The f and silent h grey area Pattern

Hecho and fact look unrelated, but they are not. In a phonetic change in Spanish, many f's became silent h's. English fact comes from the same root as faire, to do, exactly as hecho comes from hacer.

hablar
English fable (a story is spoken)
huir
to escape (English fugitive)
hermano / hermana
brother / sister (fraternal)
hembra
female
hondo
deep (the -fundo of profundo)
el humo
the smoke (fumar, to smoke)

You can even see it inside Spanish itself: hierro is iron, and ferrocarril is railways. They look unrelated until you know the f became a silent h and the e split into ie.

Other letter pairs behave similarly. Look at w and g: English war against Spanish guerra, William against Guillermo. Keep an eye out for these to aid your memory.

4. should have and could have Grammar

Combine the -ía forms with haber in its "to" form.

Debería haber cancelado · Lo debería haber cancelado / Debería haberlo cancelado · Podría haber ido · Podríamos haber ido · Debería haberlo hecho · Deberías haberlo hecho

Because haber is in the "to" form, the little word can attach to its end.

5. muerto only goes with estar Heads-up

Some of these adjectives can take ser. Complicado works with either, and you may feel drawn to one or the other depending on what you are talking about. But muerto never takes ser.

Es complicado / Está complicado · but only está muerto

Maybe that is not merely because of the adjective type. Maybe it is how Spanish perceives the world: being dead is a state the soul passes through. You cannot know the perception behind it, but wondering about it helps your memory even when you reach no conclusion.

Estoy muerto is also commonly used to mean I'm exhausted. And me muero, I'm dying, gets used constantly: from embarrassment, from laughter, from disbelief.

6. New vocabulary Vocabulary

la fiesta
the party (festival, festivity)
morir
to die
abrir
to open

You can see the e splitting between festival and fiesta.

Está cancelado · Está cancelada · Se ha complicado (it has got complicated)

With morir you will hear both ha muerto and se ha muerto, with little difference.