"De haber..."?

Question

Can anyone explain how "De haber sabido" means "If I had known", or "De haber sido así" means "If that had been so"?

I am curious about the construction of these phrases. I was just reading an interesting article about perfect infinitives using haber, such as:

Gracias por haber venido. Thank you for having come.

Fue un error haber hecho eso. It was a mistake to have done that.

I realize it's a mistake to try to literally translate, but for one thing I'm not getting how the "de" means "if".

I hope this question makes sense and someone can shed some light on this. These are great phrases!

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Thanks for filling out your profile. - Jubilado, Jan 3, 2016

Answer 1

De haber sabido ..... having known

De haber sido así ...having been this way

Maybe your confusion is thinking that these phrases are conjugated to person when in reality they are simple clauses that can attached to another clause of any conjugated person, ie: De haber sabido lo que pasara, yo fui el primero en llegar aquí / De haber sido así, a ella le dieron el trabajo.

It´s easier to just consider the de as common sentence structure and nothing more.

Yes, structural.. vocabulary, nada mas. I agree. - annierats, Jan 1, 2016

Answer 2

Yes, these things can mean many things in Spanish, just think you save yourself from having to say ´´ Si hubiera sido así..´´ Count your lucky stars!

And : Gracias por venir, works fine, although next day, I suppose you can say ' gracias por haber venido'. Personally, I work on the easiest option available, althoough I admit that the effort of learning how to avoid complications sometimes causes me to actually understand the complication. But I still avoid it in spoken Spanish.

Good point, well stated. - AnnRon, Jan 1, 2016

The above was meant to be accompanied by quoted material from your post: " . . .the effort of learning how to avoid complications sometimes causes me to actually understand the complication." I apparently did something that made it vanish. - AnnRon, Jan 1, 2016

Thanks Ann! - annierats, Jan 2, 2016

Answer 3

Maureend:

It isn't wrong to translate literally, especially when you can say the same and mean the same in both languages.

What's more, I recommend you to translate literally, word by word from Spanish to English. More often than not, you will be able to sort out what's being said and its equivalent in English.

Answer 4

Thanks for these great answers! Yes, my confusion was in thinking these were conjugated.

On a related note, I find it odd that there is not too much information online about using the infinitive of haber when I hear it used now and then on some of the Spanish shows that I watch.

Almost every article talks about it only as a helping verb for the compound tenses.

That's why you need to ask your questions here. You have a good use of English and you are polite. We love helping people like you, but tell us more about you in your profile as Ray has suggested. - Jubilado, Jan 2, 2016