The Catalan compound gerund (gerundi compost or gerundi perfet) is havent + past participle: havent parlat, havent perdut, havent sortit. It presents one situation as already complete before the situation expressed by the main verb. It often corresponds to English “having done,” but its real meaning is a relation between two events, not one fixed English tense.
The construction is concise and useful in careful writing. In everyday conversation, a finite clause with quan or a phrase with després d'haver is often more natural.
Formation: havent plus a participle
Havent is the gerund of haver. It is invariable: there are no separate forms for “having” with jo, tu, or nosaltres. The lexical verb supplies its past participle.
| Verb | Participle | Compound gerund |
|---|---|---|
| parlar | parlat | havent parlat |
| perdre | perdut | havent perdut |
| sortir | sortit | havent sortit |
| fer | fet | havent fet |
| escriure | escrit | havent escrit |
| anar-se'n | anat | havent-se'n anat |
Havent acabat la reunió, vam anar a dinar.
Having finished the meeting, we went to lunch.
Havent perdut l'últim tren, la Carla va demanar un taxi.
Having missed the last train, Carla ordered a taxi.
Havent llegit el contracte, encara el vols signar?
Having read the contract, do you still want to sign it?
The last sentence has second-person reference because the main verb is vols: it is “you” who have read the contract. The compound gerund itself still has no person ending.
Havent is final-stressed and takes no written accent. Any special spelling belongs to the participle that follows: havent produït, havent agraït, havent comprès. Keep every diaeresis and accent that the participle has on its own.
Relative anteriority, not absolute past time
The compound gerund says that its event is complete before the main event. Both events may be past, present, or future relative to the moment of speaking.
Havent revisat les xifres, ara podem publicar l'informe.
Having reviewed the figures, we can now publish the report.
Demà, havent dinat, anirem a veure l'àvia.
Tomorrow, once we've had lunch, we'll go see Grandma.
In the second example, lunch has not happened yet. It is future at the moment of speaking, but it will be complete before the visit. Calling havent dinat a “past gerund” would therefore hide the construction’s real logic: it marks an earlier viewpoint inside whatever time frame the main clause establishes.
The compound gerund can give a temporal reading (“after doing”) or a causal reading (“because one has done”). Context often supplies both:
Havent dormit tan poc, avui no em puc concentrar.
Having slept so little, I can't concentrate today.
The lack of sleep precedes the difficulty and also explains it. Catalan does not change the form to distinguish those two relations.
The subject normally matches the main subject
When no subject is stated inside the gerundial clause, the understood subject normally matches the subject of the finite clause.
Havent enviat el paquet, la Júlia va guardar el rebut.
Having sent the package, Júlia kept the receipt.
Júlia both sent the package and kept the receipt. If the main subject cannot perform the first action, the gerund dangles:
❌ Havent llegit l'informe, la conclusió semblava evident.
Incorrect as intended — la conclusió becomes the impossible understood reader.
✅ Havent llegit l'informe, vaig entendre per què la conclusió era tan contundent.
Having read the report, I understood why the conclusion was so forceful.
For two different subjects, ordinary speech prefers a finite clause: Quan vaig acabar de llegir l'informe, la conclusió em va semblar evident. A compound gerund may also contain an explicit postposed subject, but this is (formal/literary):
Havent arribat tots els membres del jurat, la presidenta va obrir la sessió.
All the jury members having arrived, the chair opened the session. (formal)
Here tots els membres del jurat is the subject of havent arribat and la presidenta is the subject of va obrir. This is an absolute construction, not an exception in which the subject may simply be left unclear. See Avoiding Dangling Gerunds for repair strategies.
Simple gerund, compound gerund, and perfect infinitive
These neighboring constructions differ in both time relation and syntax.
| Construction | Core relation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| simple gerund | simultaneous action or manner | Va entrar somrient. |
| compound gerund | completed prior circumstance | Havent entrat, va tancar la porta. |
| perfect infinitive after a preposition | relation selected by the preposition | Després d'haver entrat, va tancar la porta. |
Baixant l'escala, parlava per telèfon.
While walking downstairs, she was talking on the phone.
Havent baixat l'escala, va obrir la porta del carrer.
Having gone downstairs, she opened the front door.
Després d'haver baixat l'escala, va recordar que s'havia deixat les claus a dalt.
After going downstairs, she remembered that she'd left her keys upstairs.
The preposition després de selects the infinitive haver, not the gerund havent. The perfect infinitive is common in both speech and writing; the compound gerund is more compressed and more characteristic of careful prose.
The compound gerund cannot express a later result. Va relliscar, havent-se trencat el canell places the broken wrist before the slip, contrary to the usual intended story. Use coordinated finite verbs for successive events: Va relliscar i es va trencar el canell.
Negation and weak pronouns
Negation precedes the whole construction: no + havent + participle.
No havent rebut cap resposta, els veïns van presentar una altra queixa.
Having received no reply, the neighbors filed another complaint. (formal)
Weak pronouns attach to havent, never to the participle:
| Function | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| direct object | havent-ho | havent-ho comprovat |
| en complement | havent-ne | havent-ne parlat |
| reflexive + locative | havent-s'hi | havent-s'hi acostumat |
| first-person dative + ho | havent-m'ho | havent-m'ho explicat |
Havent-ho comprovat dues vegades, ho podem enviar amb tranquil·litat.
Having checked it twice, we can send it with confidence.
The participle is ordinarily the masculine singular form: havent comprat les entrades. With a preceding third-person direct-object clitic, standard Catalan also allows—and careful language often favors—agreement: havent-les comprades. Invariable havent-les comprat is widespread, especially (informal, Central Catalan). Agreement is particularly robust in (formal) usage and in many (regional: Valencian and Balearic) patterns. This is agreement with the object clitic, never with the subject: havent arribat elles, not havent arribades elles.
Register and regional notes
Havent + participle belongs to the common standard throughout the Catalan-speaking territory. Its strongest contrast is register, not region. (Formal/academic) prose uses it productively to compress an earlier circumstance; conversation often chooses quan ja..., com que..., després d'haver..., or two finite clauses.
The sequence en havent acabat “once finished” is also standard but stylistically more marked and locally more familiar in some areas. Learners should recognize it; for a broadly neutral model, use havent acabat or després d'haver acabat. No standard regional variety uses the compound gerund as an English-style progressive or permits it to describe an event that occurs later.
Mini-dialogue
—Ja podem enviar la proposta?
—Can we send the proposal now?
—Sí. La directora ja l'ha revisada; només falta adjuntar-hi el pressupost.
—Yes. The director has already reviewed it; all that's left is to attach the budget.
—Perfecte; havent-ho fet, l'enviaré al client.
—Perfect; once I've done that, I'll send it to the client.
The finite middle reply is the natural conversational alternative to the formal absolute havent-la revisada la directora. The final compound gerund shares its understood “I” with enviaré and is plausible here because the speaker is discussing a concise sequence of work steps.
Common Mistakes
1. Using the simple gerund when the first event is already complete.
❌ Acabant l'informe, el vaig enviar.
Incorrect for the intended sequence ‘after finishing it, I sent it’; acabant presents the action as ongoing.
✅ Havent acabat l'informe, el vaig enviar.
Having finished the report, I sent it.
2. Putting a gerund after després de.
❌ Després d'havent sopat, vam sortir a passejar.
Incorrect — després de selects a perfect infinitive.
✅ Després d'haver sopat, vam sortir a passejar.
After dinner, we went out for a walk.
3. Attaching a pronoun to the participle.
❌ Havent redactat-la de pressa, va enviar la proposta sense rellegir-la.
Incorrect — the object pronoun must attach to havent, not to the participle redactat.
✅ Havent-la redactat de pressa, va enviar la proposta sense rellegir-la.
Having drafted it quickly, she sent the proposal without rereading it.
4. Making the participle agree with an explicit subject.
❌ Havent arribades les tècniques, va començar la inspecció.
Incorrect — a participle in a haver compound does not agree with its subject.
✅ Havent arribat les tècniques, va començar la inspecció.
Once the technicians had arrived, the inspection began. (formal)
5. Using the compound gerund for a later consequence.
❌ Va enviar la sol·licitud, havent rebut la confirmació l'endemà.
Incorrect for ‘and received confirmation the next day’ — havent rebut places receipt first.
✅ Va enviar la sol·licitud i va rebre la confirmació l'endemà.
She sent the application and received confirmation the next day.
Key Takeaways
- Form the compound gerund with invariable havent + participle.
- It marks completion before the main event, even when both events lie in the future.
- Its unexpressed subject normally matches the main-clause subject; an explicit different subject creates a (formal/literary) absolute clause.
- Put no before havent and attach weak pronouns to havent: no havent-ho vist.
- Prefer després d'haver + participle or a finite clause when conversation calls for a less compressed alternative.
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Start learning Catalan →Related Topics
- Forming the GerundA2 — Form regular and irregular Catalan gerunds, pronounce their stress correctly, and attach weak pronouns without adding person endings.
- Avoiding Dangling GerundsA2 — Keep a Catalan gerund tied to the person or thing that performs its action, and repair ambiguous passive and impersonal sentences.
- The Posterior Gerund ProblemA2 — Recognize gerunds that wrongly express a later result or consequence and repair them with clear finite clauses.
- The Perfect InfinitiveB1 — Use haver plus a participle to express an action already completed relative to a modal, preposition, report, or hypothetical viewpoint.
- Participles in Compound TensesA2 — Use haver plus a normally invariable participle, place negation and clitics correctly, and recognize restricted object agreement.