What's the difference between these 2 phrases and why?

Question

Reading over the translation on the The Lost Doctrine of Repentance, I came across 2 phrases that seemed to involved the Spanish words, "tener" (to have) and "haber" (to have, but used differently). They are as follows:

"yo tengo que decir" (I have to say)

"cuando he confesado" (when I confessed)

My question is: why does the first phrase use "tener"? I would think (and this might be my challenge) that one would use "haber". Could you please clarify? Thank you.

Answer 1

Hi SaigeSmith.

Keeping it simple:

Tener = to have as a main verb. To hold, to possess.

I have a book. ? One-word verb = have. (I am the owner of the book.)

(Yo) Tengo un libro.

Tener que + infinitive verb = to have to + base form of verb as an idiomatic expression.

I have to read my book. ? Verbal phrase of two verbs, have + to read

(Yo) Tengo que leer mi libro.

Haber = to have as an auxiliary, or helping verb.

I have flown to Mexico twice. ? Two-word verb = have flown: helping verb (have) + past participle verb (flown) = present perfect tense.

(Yo) He volado a México dos veces.

To sum up:

A conjugated form of tener is always and only a main verb.

A conjugated form of tener que (+ infinitive) is always and only idiomatic for “to have to” do something.

A conjugated form of haber is always and only a helping verb, and usually—along with another verb—constitutes an occurrence of one of the perfect tenses.

So, “I have to say” can only translate to “(Yo) Tengo que decir.” It cannot be “(Yo) He dicho,” because that doesn’t mean “I have to say.” It means “I have said.”

I hope this was helpful.

Answer 2

TENER
Yo tengo que decir = I have to say/ I must say
HABER
Yo he de decir = I have to say / I must say (a little more formal)
"Haber de"+ infinitivo = "Tener que" + infinitivo = to have to ...

Yo he dicho = "I said" / "I have said" (here "haber" acts only as an auxiliary verb)

Answer 3

Tener is have only in the possessive sense of have.

Where we use have as an auxiliary (helping) verb, like ¨I have spoken¨ or ¨She had traveled¨ then you need to use Haber.

Answer 4

From my understanding, tener is used to say something that you have as in you "own" or "possess" or something that you have to do. Haber is something that you "have done". The word "he" means I have as in "I have done", so the sentence should say "when I have confessed."

Take a look at this post as well as this one.

Answer 5

yo tengo que decir -- I have to say ( probably I'm suffring aperceived insult and want to defend myself.. Really, boy, I have to say, you're unbearable)

cuando he confesado-- When I have confessed// when I have made my confession. ( this just means, later on, when I have done this.) I would have used cuando haya, or cuando habré confesado. But I'm only a learner and there isno context. Context is all!

If you say: He de confesar it means '' I have to confess'' .

I've updated this, thanks to Rogspax. - annierats, Mar 13, 2013

Answer 6

Lot´s of good answers already, but I´ll give a simple short one.

Tener que (conjugated as needed) is a fixed phrase in Spanish, just as ¨have to¨, for meaning ¨must do¨ or ¨am-are required to do¨ is in English.

It is best to think of it as a unit, rather than break it down in this case. If you think about, ¨have to¨ meaning ¨am-are required to do¨ doesn´t make much sense as individual words in English either.

Next up, Tener ganas or Tener prisa. There are a bunch of these constructions in Spanish, but I think Tener que is the most common. Have to.

You can use haber, but , I don't think the example is correct. He de confesar would be correct. - annierats, Mar 13, 2013