Come on Over: A Guide to the “Venir” Conjugation in Spanish (2023)

You know that feeling when you don’t know whether you’re coming or going? Well, we’ll make it easy for you. In a past article, we have covered the verb ir (to go) and, today, we’ll be focusing on the verb venir (to come). We’ll cover the venir conjugation starting from the basics and leading up to some pro-tips. We’ll share some examples and also give you some useful and fun phrases.

Are you ready to start getting places?

What type of verb is venir?

The verb venir is irregular as it does not follow the usual pattern for Spanish verbs ending in “-er”.

Venir is a stem-changing verb, meaning that, as we’ll see below, in some conjugations the vowel “e” from the verb’s stem can change to “ie” or “i” when it’s part of a stressed syllable, among some other changes.

Moreover, venir is an intransitive verb which means it does not require an object to function.

Verbals of venir: infinitive, gerund and participle

Now that you have an idea of the meaning and type of verb we are talking about, we’ll move onto the venir conjugation. We’ll start by looking at its verbals: the infinitive, the gerund and the participle.

Verbals can be confusing as they actually function as nouns, adjectives and adverbs and not as actual verbs. However, there’s no need to worry! They’re not really that complex once you take a look at them.

Infinitive

Venir (to come)

• ¿Vas a venir? (Are you going to come?)

Gerund

Viniendo (coming)

• Viniendo de la playa, me encontré con mi ex. (I run into my ex coming back from the beach.)

Participle

Venido (come)

• Si hubiesen venido, se hubiesen enterado. (If they had come, they would have found out.)

Venir conjugation for all levels

Venir conjugation for beginners

There are 10 tenses in the indicative mood in the Spanish language. The most common of those are presente (present), pretérito imperfecto (imperfect preterite, a form of the past tense), pretérito perfecto (perfect preterite, another form of the past tense) and futuro (future).

They are also the simplest forms of the venir conjugation and the ones we’ll take a look at first:

Venir conjugation examples for beginners

• Present: Venimos de un viaje por las montañas. (We come from a trip through the mountains.)
• Imperfect preterite: ¿Con cuánta gente venías? (How many people were you coming with?)
• Perfect preterite: Vinieron a buscar los libros que me prestaron. (They came to fetch the books they had loaned me.)
• Future: Si no viene hoy, vendrá mañana. (If he/she doesn’t come today, he/she will come tomorrow.)

If you want to have some fun with the present tense conjugation of venir, you can take a look at Cristina Aguilera’s Spanish version of her classic song Come on Over, Ven conmigo.

Venir conjugation for intermediate students

Kudos on passing the basic level! Now it’s time to step it up a notch and focus on the compound tenses of the venir conjugation in the indicative mood.

The trick for compound tenses in Spanish is mastering the haber conjugation, as the only form of venir that comes into play here is the participle “venido”. To construct compound tenses in Spanish you need to include the correct form of the verb haber + the past participle of the verb in question, which is the one that carries the meaning.

Below, you’ll find a table with pretérito perfecto (preterite perfect), pluscuamperfecto (pluperfect) and futuro compuesto (future perfect) tenses for venir, but it might also be helpful to take a look at our Ven conmigo.

Venir conjugation examples for intermediate level

• Preterite perfect: Hemos venido a ver cómo estás. (We’ve come to see how you were doing.)
• Pluperfect: Había venido para visitar a tu hermano. (I had come to visit your brother.)
• Future perfect: Habremos venido en hora. (We will we have come in time)

Venir conjugation for advanced learners

Now, are you ready for a real challenge? Well, the subjunctive mood conjugation ofvenir is exactly what you need.

This Spanish mood is quite abstract; it is used to express doubts, emotions, desires, and the unknown. Here, we’ll look at its presente (present), imperfecto (imperfect) and futuro (future) tenses.

Venir conjugation examples for advanced learners

• Present: Espero que vengan muchas personas a la fiesta. (I hope a lot of people come to the party.)
• Imperfect: Si vinieras en hora a clase, entenderías de qué hablamos. (If you came to class on time, you’d understand what we’re talking about)
• Future: Vengan como vinieren, aquí serán bien recibidos. (Whatever way they come, they will be welcome here.)

The subjunctive future is particularly tricky because it has no direct English translation, and it might be referring to another future or even the present. However, it is rarely used in speech nowadays, and you are more likely to find it in literature or legal contexts.

Extra venir conjugation: conditional tenses and imperative

If you are still hungry for knowledge, here you’ll find some extra tenses of the venir conjugation.

We have the condicional simple (simple conditional) and the condicional compuesto (conditional perfect), as well as the imperative:

Venir conjugation examples in the conditional tenses

• Simple conditional: ¿Vendrías mañana a cuidarla? (Would you come tomorrow to take care of her?)
• Conditional perfect: Si hubiesen sabido, no habrían venido. (If they had known, they wouldn’t have come.)
• Imperative: ¡Ven aquí inmediatamente! (Come here immediately!)

If you are looking for more information on conditional tenses, take a look at this overview of the Spanish conditional tenses.

Ir vs. venir

At the beginning of this post, we talked about the verbs ir and venir as opposites, but it’s important to point out that in some cases, ir can also be translated as “to come”. A clear example of this is the expression ¡Ya voy! (I’m coming!)

If you want more information about the differences between ir and venir you can take a look at this article.

Expressions with venir

Finally, let’s take a look at some interesting phrases and expressions with the verb venir so you can show off when talking with your Spanish-speaking friends. These are quite varied and are definitely worth learning, and we’ll add some conjugation examples for the trickiest ones.

¡Me lo veía venir!

This phrase roughly translates into “I saw it coming!” and is used in similar contexts as the English version.

Venir al mundo

This phrase literally translates into “Come to the world” and is used as a euphemism for being born. Let’s take a look at an example to make sure it’s clear:

• Viniste al mundo para hacerlo mejor (You were born to make this world a better place. / You came to this world to make it a better place.)

Venirse abajo/arriba.

This phrase is used when something or someone is falling apart. The equivalent phrase in English would be “to fall apart”. Let’s take a look at an example so you can see how it’s used:

• Después de la muerte de mi padre, me vine abajo. (After my father’s death, I fell apart.)

Venir al pelo

This is a funny phrase because, if translated literally, it would be something like “come to the hair”, when it actually means that something is perfect for you or is just what you needed. Let’s see it in action:

• Me regalaron una televisión para mi cumpleaños y me vino al pelo porque la mía se había roto. (I got a TV for my birthday, which was great because mine was broken.)

No sabe si va o viene

This Spanish phrase is used when someone is confused or unsure of what they’re doing, similarly to “He/She doesn’t know whether he/she is coming or he/she is going” in English.

Venir como anillo al dedo

This classic Spanish phrase can mean that something is very timely, well-suited or fits perfect. In English, it would correspond to the phrase “to fit like a glove”, although it can also have a similar meaning to the phrase venir al pelo we saw above.

No hay mal que por bien no venga

This phrase has a perfect equivalent in English, which is a rare occurrence between different languages. This would be “every cloud has a silver lining” and is used in the same contexts.

Venirconjugation – conclusion

We hope this guide has given you a lot to learn about the venir conjugation and answered most, if not all, your questions. If you want more information about Spanish conjugations in general, you can look into our overview of Spanish tenses.