Hacer Conjugation in Spanish: Charts, Hice vs Hizo & 'Ago'

How do you conjugate hacer in the present tense?

In the present tense, hacer hides exactly one surprise: the yo form is hago, with a g that appears out of nowhere. Every other form behaves like a normal -er verb. That makes hacer a "go verb", the same club as tener (tengo), poner (pongo), and salir (salgo).

Pronunciation first: the h in hacer is always silent, so hago sounds like "ah-go". Across Latin America the c before e or i sounds like s; in most of Spain it's the soft th of "think". The hints above follow the Latin American sound.

A few notes for reading the chart. Spanish drops the pronoun most of the time, so hago on its own already means "I do" or "I make". If you're learning Latin American Spanish, skip the vosotros row; ustedes hacen covers "you all". In Argentina and Uruguay you'll hear vos hacés instead of tú haces.

Notice the translations, too: hacer covers everything English splits between "do" and "make". You do homework and make dinner; Spanish hace both. And if the ser conjugation scared you with soy, eres and fui, relax. Hacer is far tamer: learn hago, and the present column of the hacer conjugation chart is yours.

Hacer preterite and imperfect: hice, hizo, hacía

Spanish uses two simple past tenses, and hacer splits the difference: wildly irregular in one, perfectly regular in the other.

Hacer preterite conjugation (hice)

For the preterite, hacer swaps its stem for hic-, and the endings land with no written accents anywhere: hice, not "hicé".

Why hizo and not "hico"? Pure spelling. In Spanish, c sounds soft before e and i (hice, hiciste) but hard, like k, before a, o and u. Keep the c and hico would read "EE-koh". Swapping in a z protects the soft sound, so the él form is spelled hizo. Same sound, safer spelling.

Hice vs hizo: who did it?

The most common mix-up in the hacer preterite is grabbing the wrong tiny word. Neither carries an accent to guide you, so let the last vowel do the work:

Memory hook: hice ends in e, like "me". Hizo ends in o, like "other people". So ¿qué hiciste? asks what you did, lo hice answers "I did it", and ella lo hizo passes the blame.

Hacer imperfect conjugation (hacía)

Here's your reward for surviving hic-: the imperfect of hacer is completely regular. Stem hac- plus the ordinary -ía endings, accents included. Only three Spanish verbs have an irregular imperfect (ser, ir, ver), and hacer isn't one of them.

Which past do you want? Rough rule: hice reports a finished act ("I did it"), while hacía paints the background ("I used to do it", "I was doing it"). Ayer hice ejercicio says it happened; antes hacía ejercicio admits you stopped. The full decision guide lives in our preterite vs imperfect lesson.

Hacer conjugation chart: future, conditional, and compounds

Now for the best bargain in the whole hacer conjugation. The future and the conditional both build on one irregular stem, har-, then attach the same endings every Spanish verb uses. Learn one shortcut, collect two tenses.

Hacer future tense (haré)

Hacer conditional (haría)

Hacer shares this chopped-stem trick with a small crew of verbs that shrink before future endings: decir (diré), tener (tendré), poner (pondré), salir (saldré). Meet the family once and the forms stop looking random.

The compound tenses: he hecho

Every compound tense uses a form of haber plus one unchanging participle, hecho: he hecho (I've done), había hecho (I had done), habré hecho (I'll have done). The gerund is haciendo, as in ¿qué estás haciendo? (what are you doing?). The exhaustive list of forms sits on SpanishDict's conjugator whenever you need to check one.

Hecho or echo? The trap that catches native speakers

Hecho (done, made) and echo ("I throw", from echar) sound identical, because Spanish h is silent. Plenty of native speakers write "he echo" when they mean he hecho, so getting it right earns you real credibility. The test is simple: if the word comes from hacer, it keeps hacer's h. He hecho la cama (I've made the bed) passes the test. Echo de menos a mi familia (I miss my family) comes from echar, so it starts bare.

Hacer subjunctive and imperative: haga, hiciera, haz

Wishes, doubts and orders round out the hacer conjugation. At the beginner stage, treat the subjunctive as recognition practice rather than a memorization emergency.

Present subjunctive of hacer (haga)

The present subjunctive grows straight out of that odd yo form: hago drops its -o and takes -a endings, giving haga. You'll meet it after triggers of wanting, hoping and doubting: quiero que, espero que, ojalá.

Imperfect subjunctive of hacer (hiciera)

This one recycles the preterite stem hic-. You'll hear it most in if-sentences and polite pasts.

Every -ra form has an -se twin with the same meaning: hiciese, hicieses, hiciese, hiciésemos, hicieseis, hiciesen. Books lean on the -se set; conversation mostly runs on -ra.

Hacer imperative: ¡Hazlo!

The tú command is one proud syllable: haz. Think of ¡Hazlo! as Spanish for "just do it".

Why haz with a z? Same rescue as hizo: Spanish spells that soft sound with z whenever it can't sit in front of e or i, including at the end of a word (think luz or paz). In voseo areas the command is hacé. And notice that every negative command simply borrows the present subjunctive, so no hagas came free with the first table.

Why does Spanish use hacer for the weather?

In English, the day is cold. In Spanish, the day makes cold: hace frío. Weather Spanish runs on impersonal hacer, always in the third person singular, with no subject in sight.

Why "make"? Because frío, calor, sol and viento are nouns in these phrases. Spanish treats weather as stuff the day produces: it makes cold, it makes sun. That fact also explains the classic intensity mistake. Since frío is a noun, you say hace mucho frío (literally "it makes much cold"), never "hace muy frío"; muy is reserved for adjectives.

Past weather leans on the imperfect you already know: hacía calor (it was hot). Spanish does hand some sky states to estar, like está nublado (it's cloudy) and está lloviendo (it's raining), but the noun crew of frío, calor, sol and viento belongs to hacer.

How do you say 'ago' in Spanish? Hace + time

Here's the hacer superpower nobody warns you about: it's also how Spanish says "ago". Hace dos años means "two years ago", literally "it makes two years". There's no separate word for "ago"; frozen little hace does the whole job.

Notice the word-order flip: English hangs "ago" after the time (two years ago), while Spanish puts hace before it (hace dos años). And spot which patterns mean "for": pair hace... que or desde hace with a present-tense verb and Spanish counts time you're still inside. Hace dos años que vivo aquí: the living continues.

Two guardrails. First, this hace never pluralizes; it's hace dos años, not "hacen dos años", even with the years in plural. Second, the patterns are alternatives, not building blocks: say hace dos años que vivo aquí or vivo aquí desde hace dos años, never both at once. Learn this section well and you've unlocked one of the most searched, most used corners of everyday Spanish.

Hacerse means 'to become', plus 6 expressions worth stealing

Add se and the verb changes careers: hacerse means "to become", usually for changes you chose or worked toward. Se hizo médico: he became a doctor. Nos hicimos amigos: we became friends. You'll also hear it for creeping change, most famously se hace tarde (it's getting late). File hacerse away now; once you start listening for it, it's everywhere.

Hacer also anchors a stack of everyday phrases where English reaches for a different verb entirely. These six are all worth stealing today:

Spot the conjugations hiding in there: a command (haz), a preterite (hicimos), a compound (has hecho). Expressions are the sneaky way to rehearse the whole hacer conjugation without opening a chart.

Which hacer conjugation should you learn first?

Nine tables make a reference, not a syllabus. If you're at the beginner (A1–A2) stage, these four earn their place first:

1. Present (hago, haces, hace...). Routines, questions, offers. ¿Qué haces? may be the question you'll hear most in casual chat.
2. Preterite (hice, hizo...). ¿Qué hiciste ayer? opens half of all small talk, and now you can answer it.
3. Imperfect (hacía...). Used-to stories and past weather: hacía frío, hacía calor.
4. The voy a shortcut. Say voy a hacer (I'm going to do) instead of haré, and the future tense can wait a few months. Spanish speakers do exactly this in conversation.

While those settle in, dodge the classic potholes:

• "Hació" doesn't exist. The él form of the preterite is hizo. Regular -er habits (comió) don't apply to the hic- stem.
• Mixing hice and hizo. Last vowel = person: e is yo, o is él/ella/usted.
• "Hacen dos años" for "two years ago". Time-hace stays singular: hace dos años.
• "Hace muy frío." Frío is a noun here, so it takes mucho: hace mucho frío.
• "He echo" for "I've done". From hacer, so it's he hecho, with the h.
• "No haz eso." Negative commands switch to the subjunctive: no hagas eso.

That's the full hacer conjugation, from hago to hiciesen. Chant the present, befriend hic- and har-, and let hace run the weather and the calendar for you. When you're ready for the next heavyweight, the tener conjugation runs on the same go-verb wiring, and every free lesson lives on the Spanish hub.