# debería haber or habría debido?



## vince

Hello everyone,

I am confused as to how to say "should have"

Is it debería haber or haber debido?

I understand that "There should be" is "Debería haber"

but I don't understand "yo debería haber visto"

since isn't "should have" past tense for "should", implying that debería --> habría debido?

as in "habría debido ver"


Similarly for "I could have seen him" = Lo habría podido verlo OR Lo podría haberlo visto?


In my view, it seems that "should have" is the same tense and aspect as "would have", so if "I would have lied" is "Habría mentido", then why wouldn't you say "Habría debido mentir" for "I should have lied"?


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## AmethystSW

I think that "I should have lied" would be "Yo debería haber mentido."
But I could be completely wrong. *shrug*


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## lazarus1907

vince said:
			
		

> I am confused as to how to say "*should have*"
> Is it debería haber   or haber debido?
> I understand that "*There should be*" is "Debería haber"


Both are translated the same way, but they are completely different: The periphrasis in the first example has the verb "deber", which agrees in person and number with the subject (yo deberíamos, tú deberías...), followed by the "infinitivo compuesto" of the verb that you want to use (e.g. ir: debería *haber ido*). "Haber" is used only as an auxiliary verb.

In the second example, the periphrasis uses "deber" again, followed by the verb "*haber*", which is not used as an auxiliary, but as an impersonal verb. The whole construction is impersonal, so "debería", here, is always in the 3rd person of the singular.


			
				vince said:
			
		

> but I don't understand "yo debería haber visto"
> since isn't "should have" past tense for "should", implying that debería --> habría debido?
> as in "habría debido ver"


First example again: Deber + ver. I am not sure about the past tense for "should" in English, but you "shouldn't" be using English grammar to construct sentences in Spanish.


			
				vince said:
			
		

> Similarly for "I could have seen him" = Lo habría podido verlo   OR Lo podría haberlo visto?


You can't repeat "lo" in the same sentence. Either you say "lo podría haber visto" o "podría haberlo visto", but not both.


			
				vince said:
			
		

> In my view, it seems that "should have" is the same tense and aspect as "would have", so if "I would have lied" is "Habría mentido", then why wouldn't you say "Habría debido mentir" for "I should have lied"?


"should have" and "would have" are different in Spanish, believe me. The first one needs a periphrasis with "deber" + an "infinitivo compuesto" of the verb you want to use, whereas the second one can be formed using the "condicional compuesto" tense of that verb: "habría ido".



			
				AmethystSW said:
			
		

> I think that "I should have lied" would be "*(*Yo*)* debería haber mentido."
> But I could be completely wrong. *shrug*


You are completely right, but I wouldn't have used "Yo".

I hope this helps


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## vince

So auxiliaries such as deber, querer, and poder do not have "past conditional" forms?

e.g. Are the following sentences are impossible:

Habría debido (unless deber means "to owe something")
Habría querido (unless querer means "to want something")
Habría podido



> but you "shouldn't" be using English grammar to construct sentences in Spanish.



That's the reason why I am surprised, because Spanish appears to be following English grammar, in that "debería" is should and "haber" is have ==> "debería haber" = should have

Whereas if Spanish went by its normal grammatical rules, "debería" being should, "habría debido" should be "should have" since it's the past tense of debería.


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## lazarus1907

> So auxiliaries such as deber, querer, and poder do not have "past conditional" forms?


They do, but they are not auxiliary verbs in Spanish!!! 


			
				vince said:
			
		

> Habría debido (unless deber means "to owe something")
> Habría querido (unless querer means "to want something")
> Habría podido



"Deber" can be used as "must". "Querer" means "want something" or "want to do something". 

This tense is called "condicional compuesto", and it is not wrong such as it is, except for it doesn't express exactly what you think it does.
This tense is used to describe the outcome of a condition, normally expressed in "pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo" or "infinitivo compuesto":

If you had done what I told you, I would have invited you
Si hubieras hecho lo que te dije, te *habría invitado*

If something happens to be true... I would "want/can/must"??? Sounds a bit weird, don't you think? The only way of inserting these verbs is with inanimate things: "Habría debido ser". But still sounds weird. It is more natural to say "Debería haber sido".

In English, "should", "must" and "would" are auxiliary verbs (I think), but in Spanish they are not. The first two are formed with a periphrasis; "would" doesn't is express through desinences, since we have a proper tense for it.

This is getting confusing now: If you want to translate "should", use "debería":

I    should  have  called you
Debería  haberte  llamado
Te debería haber llamado


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## lazarus1907

AmethystSW said:
			
		

> You can say "Debería haberte llamado"?
> I was wondering if there was another place to put the pronouns.
> My teachers had said there weren't, in that tense.
> Thanks for that. ( :



It has nothing to do with the tense. In a periphrais, you can use the direct/indirect pronouns before the periphrasis, or next to the verb (enclítico) in its "forma no personal":

Te debería haber dicho lo que pasó
Te lo debería haber dicho
Debería habertelo dicho


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## vince

lazarus1907 said:
			
		

> They do, but they are not auxiliary verbs in Spanish!!!
> 
> 
> "Deber" can be used as "must". "Querer" means "want something" or "want to do something".



I don't understand. What is an example of the phrase "habría debido" where deber does not mean "to owe"?

If I am getting it right, the auxiliaries deber, querer, and poder do not have past conditional forms?

That the past conditional forms only exist when they are normal verbs, not auxilaries?

How about phrases like tener que, hay que, puede ser que? can you put them in conditional?


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## heidita

habría debido llamarte : I should have called you

The verbs you mention do have past conditionals:

habría tenido que 

habría habido

habría podido ser que 

I think you are sticking too much on the word "auxiliary" as in spanish they are not pure auxiliaries as in English.
The verbs tener que, deber de etc are used though in a way as auxiliaries (called perífrasis), which is I suppose what Lazarus is trying to explain.


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## vince

heidita said:
			
		

> habría debido llamarte : I should have called you



How is this different from debería haberte llamado?


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## heidita

Now that you are asking I think there is none, at least not in meaning.

Google it through and you will find lots of entries for *habría debido llamarte*

I just saw: Jesus no *habría debido sufrir* tanto

or: Jesus no *debería haber sufrido* tanto

being the latter the normal use.


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## elmoch

heidita said:
			
		

> Now that you are asking I think there is none, at least not in meaning.
> 
> Google it through and you will find lots of entries for *habría debido llamarte*
> 
> I just saw: Jesús no *habría debido sufrir* tanto
> 
> or: Jesús no *debería haber sufrido* tanto
> 
> being the latter the normal use.


 
I agree with heidita. There is supposedly a difference, as they are different tenses, but nowadays it is so subtile that even native speakers must think twice (at least) to percieve it.
The matter is not simple at all, and it becomes even worse when it comes to verbs so polysemic and multifuctional as _deber_, _parecer_ and the like...
In addition to that, languages always interact and influence each other...

For a quick reference of spanish tenses go to:
*www.rae.es** > Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (left-hand column) > Apéndices > Apéndice 1.*

You will not find an answer to the doubts dealt with in this thread, but at least you will be sure of what tenses exist and how they are spelled. 

I hope this helps you a little.


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## vince

heidita said:
			
		

> Now that you are asking I think there is none, at least not in meaning.
> 
> Google it through and you will find lots of entries for *habría debido llamarte*
> 
> I just saw: Jesus no *habría debido sufrir* tanto
> 
> or: Jesus no *debería haber sufrido* tanto
> 
> being the latter the normal use.



So "should have" is both "deberia haber hecho" and "habria debido hacer", and the meaning is basically the same except that the former is used more frequently?

What do you think about this, lazarus1907?


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## heidita

Lazarus, where are you!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that is basically it. The "auxiliary" verbs (used as such) poder, deber, querer do have the form we mentioned, but are rarely used in this form.

no habría debido sufrir   - no debería haber sufrido
habría querido comprar  - quería haber comprado
habría podido ir  -  podría haber ido

So always the latter, especially in informal language.


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## vince

After this thread, I began to become doubtful about the equivalent construction in French.

You see in French, as in Spanish, devoir (deber) = must / to have to. deber and devoir derive from the same Latin word, and they even both have the same meaning of "to owe" when not used as an auxiliary:

Tu me dois 5 $ = Tú me debes $5.

In French, the conditional of devoir (deber) is used to convey English "should"

e.g. "She leaves" = "Elle part" (== Ella parte)
but "She should leave" = "Elle devrait partir" == Elle debería partir (devrait is the 3rd person singular conditional of devoir (deber), the equivalent of debería)

So it seems that the French and Spanish constructions should be parallel right?

Can some of you check out this link?
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=868384#post868384

The Spanish thread (the thread this post is in) has provided me with convincing logic that it should be "DEBER (conditional) + HABER HECHO" to say "should have done", whereas the French side gives convincing logic that it should be "HABER (conditional) DEBIDO HACER".

I think that now I will just memorize the Spanish "debería haber hecho" as a set phrase or expression and not try to think of any justifications. Similarly with the French.


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## Dantefollower

Just a little precision, Vince. The Spanish speaking people do not usually use "partir" to say "to leave" but rather "salir".


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## elmoch

Dantefollower said:
			
		

> Just a little precision, Vince. The Spanish speaking people do not usually use "partir" to say "to leave" but rather "salir".


 
We do use _partir_, although it's quite a poetic or old-fashined verb. And in the phrase proposed by Vince, we would use *irse *or *marcharse*, rather than _salir_.

On the other hand, in Spanish we place the currency symbols after the quantity and separated from it, e.g. : Tu me dois 5 $ = (Tú) me debes* 5 $*.

Regards.


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## Spoudaious

heidita said:
			
		

> Now that you are asking I think there is none, at least not in meaning.
> 
> Google it through and you will find lots of entries for *habría debido llamarte*
> 
> I just saw: Jesus no *habría debido sufrir* tanto
> 
> or: Jesus no *debería haber sufrido* tanto
> 
> being the latter the normal use.


 
I do think there are differences in meaning between the sentences you've used as examples.

In the first one what is communicated is that Jesus *wouldn't have had to suffer* so much, if something which the sentence doesn't state hadn't happened. What happens is that in Spanish we normally don't use the verb 'deber' to mean this, but rather use 'tener que', so that 'Jesús no habría tenido que sufrir tanto' would be so much more common than the first sentence you used as example, conveying the same meaning and without being subject of confusion with the second sentence you used as example.

The second sentence has an ethical meaning, telling us that Jesus *shouldn't have suffered *so much, i.e., it laments His death whereas the first one only tells us that if someone had done something or that if something had stopped His death, of course, he wouldn't have died.

I hope I've been articulate enough to contribute to the understanding of the subtle differences of these verbal constructions; more than anything, I hope my analysis is cogent and actually consistent with Spanish semantics.


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## alelifich

No, "habría debido llamarte está ma". Generalmente la gente usa mal este tiempo de verbo.
"debería haberte llamado"
"Jesus no debería haber sufrido tanto". You are saying that you dont agree with the fact that he had suffered so much.
If you say "no debió sufrir tanto". you are doubting about the fact that the suffered a lot. 

70 % of the natives do have problems with the form "habría",they use it instead of hubiese or hubiera. I dont know in Spain but in Argentina almost everybody uses it wrongly.


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## Spoudaious

alelifich said:
			
		

> No habría debido llamarte está mal. Generalmente la gente usa mal este tiempo de verbo.
> "no debería haberte llamado"
> "Jesus no debería haber sufrido tanto". Your are saying that you dont agree with the fact that he had suffered so much.
> If you say "no debió sufrir tanto". you are doubting about the fact that the suffered a lot.


 
I don't agree with you in that _no habría debido llamarte_ is incorrect. Not if you use it in the appropriate context to express what you mean. Let's read the following sentence, for instance:

_Si el gobierno hubiese atendido a sus reclamos, el pueblo no habría debido tomar la justicia en sus propias manos._

As explained in my previous post, _no habría debido_ could be replaced by _no habría tenido que_ (a periphrastic construction) and thus avoid the confusion that the use of _deber_ generates, but that doesn't mean that _deber_ is grammatically or semantically incorrect here.

I also don't agree with you in your explanation of the sentence about Jesus. To use a very common expression in Spanish, _deberías haber visto la expresión en su rostro_, I think that every native Spanish speaker of this forum will agree in that there's no conveying of disagreement with a past fact. You are going to say that this phrase doesn't have a _no_ at the beginning, but just examine it a bit and I hope you will see what I'm saying.

I don't know whether there's an equivalent for _no creo que Jesús haya sufrido tanto_ (I don't believe Jesus had suffered so much), but I guess that is what you mean when you say it means that one doesn't agree with the fact that he had suffered so much.

One of the meanings of the verb _deber_ is the following:

*6.* tr. U. como auxiliar en las perífrasis, en las que añade una nota de inseguridad o probabilidad al verbo principal. _Debe __de__ hacer frío._ _Debieron __de__ salir a pelear._

_Source: Diccionario de la Real Academia Española_

I think this sheds a lot of light on the subject. Let me explain why. In the sentence _jesús no debió sufrir tanto_ the verb _deber _could be understood either to have the sense of uncertainty or probability of _sufrir tanto_ (with which I think you would agree) or, more consistent with my understanding, that of obligation. Right?? WRONG!!! The preposition _de _makes all the difference here and is what is lacking in your sentences for them to have the meaning of uncertainty.

So _Jesús no debió *de* haber sufrido tanto _does tells us that the speaker doubts or questions the degree of Jesus' sufferings, but without _de _one's left with the meaning of obligation for the verb _deber._


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## alelifich

Spoudaious said:
			
		

> I don't agree with you in that _no habría debido llamarte_ is incorrect. Not if you use it in the appropriate context to express what you mean. Let's read the following sentence, for instance:
> 
> _Si el gobierno hubiese atendido a sus reclamos, el pueblo no habría debido tomar la justicia en sus propias manos._


Esa oración está mal. Lo correcto sería decir: _Si el gobierno hubiese atendido a sus reclamos el pueblo no hubiese tenido que tomar la justicia en sus propias manos. Habría está mal usado acá._


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## Spoudaious

alelifich said:
			
		

> Esa oración está mal. Lo correcto sería decir: _Si el gobierno hubiese atendido a sus reclamos el pueblo no hubiese tenido que tomar la justicia en sus propias manos. Habría está mal usado acá._


 
Te contradices porque fuiste tú mismo quien dijo:


			
				alelifich said:
			
		

> 70 % of the natives do have problems with the form "habría",they use it instead of hubiese or hubiera. I dont know in Spain but in Argentina almost everybody uses it wrongly.


En una oración condicional, como la aportada por mí, la segunda cláusula, en este caso "..., el pueblo no habría tenido que", es la que contiene una construcción verbal en modo condicional/potencial. El uso del pretérito imperfecto en la apódosis es incorrecto. Piensa en la frase (que es correcta): "Si yo fuera rico, daría la mitad de mi fortuna a los pobres." Fijate que en la cláusula precedida por el "si" condicional usamos el pretérito imperfecto, y que en la segunda cláusula usamos el potencial. Sería incorrecto decir: "Si yo fuera rico, diera la mitad..."

Por otro lado, no expresas tu opinión en cuanto a la semantica de "deber" vs. "deber de".


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## alelifich

Spoudaious said:
			
		

> Te contradices porque fuiste tú mismo quien dijo:
> 
> En una oración condicional, como la aportada por mí, la segunda cláusula, en este caso "..., el pueblo no habría tenido que", es la que contiene una construcción verbal en modo condicional/potencial. El uso del pretérito imperfecto en la apódosis es incorrecto. Piensa en la frase (que es correcta): "Si yo fuera rico, daría la mitad de mi fortuna a los pobres." Fijate que en la cláusula precedida por el "si" condicional usamos el pretérito imperfecto, y que en la segunda cláusula usamos el potencial. Sería incorrecto decir: "Si yo fuera rico, diera la mitad..."
> 
> Por otro lado, no expresas tu opinión en cuanto a la semantica de "deber" vs. "deber de".


 Sí, tenés razón. Igual la oración de no habría debido me sigue sonando raro, bah, al menos yo la diría de otra manera. Pero sí, visto con ese verbo, veo que tenés razón. 
En cuanto a lo de deber y deber de, no opino porque la verdad no sé.


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## heidita

alelifich said:
			
		

> En cuanto a lo de deber y deber de, no opino porque la verdad no sé.


 
En español tiene un significado bien distinto.

Debe llover. (¡A ver si llueve de una vez! ¡Que no ha llovido en meses!)

Debe de llover. (Debe de estar lloviendo)(mirando por la ventana: la calle está mojada y la gente lleva paraguas)


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## Spoudaious

alelifich said:
			
		

> Sí, tenés razón. Igual la oración de no habría debido me sigue sonando raro, bah, al menos yo la diría de otra manera. Pero sí, visto con ese verbo, veo que tenés razón.
> En cuanto a lo de deber y deber de, no opino porque la verdad no sé.


 
Concuerdo contigo en que la construcción "no habría debido" suena rarísima, pero esto no la hace gramaticalmente incorrecta. Por eso es que propugno por el uso de "no habría tenido que" y listo... problema resuelto!

Creo que ha sido un debate muy fructífero


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## grammarloco

vince said:


> The Spanish thread (the thread this post is in) has provided me with convincing logic that it should be "DEBER (conditional) + HABER HECHO" to say "should have done"



I missed this convincing logic.  The closest that I got was an assertion by heidita that one set of forms is more commonly used than another.  Was there a "why"?


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## cmont878

grammarloco said:


> I missed this convincing logic.  The closest that I got was an assertion by heidita that one set of forms is more commonly used than another.  Was there a "why"?



Because "debería haber" is more common, and "habría" constructions are not even understood well by native speakers. I did a quick Google search to compare relative frequencies of "debería haber" and "habría debido." The former had 642,000 hits, while the latter had only 85,900.


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