Impersonal Verbs (Llover, Nevar, Hay) | Spanish (Latin America) Grammar

An impersonal verb is a verb that has no grammatical subject — or whose subject is "no one in particular." In English, we often use a dummy it: it rains, it's three o'clock, there is a problem. Spanish doesn't use a dummy pronoun. The verb simply appears in the third-person singular, with no subject at all. Impersonal verbs fall into three main groups: weather, existence, and time.

Weather verbs

Spanish uses a small group of verbs that describe weather phenomena. These verbs are always used in the third-person singular with no subject.

Verb	Meaning	Example
llover	to rain	llueve
nevar	to snow	nieva
granizar	to hail	graniza
tronar	to thunder	truena
relampaguear	to flash with lightning	relampaguea
amanecer	to dawn	amanece
anochecer	to get dark	anochece

Llueve mucho en la costa del Pacífico.

It rains a lot on the Pacific coast.

En las montañas nieva todos los inviernos.

In the mountains, it snows every winter.

Notice that Spanish has no equivalent of English "it." The verb llueve alone means "it rains." Trying to add a pronoun like ello sounds completely wrong.

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Some weather verbs are stem-changing. Llover has llueve (o → ue), nevar has nieva (e → ie), tronar has truena (o → ue). The changes still follow normal patterns.

Weather with hacer and estar

Many weather expressions use the verb hacer (literally "to make"). These are also impersonal.

Hace calor en verano y hace frío en invierno.

It's hot in summer and cold in winter.

Hace mucho viento hoy.

It's very windy today.

Other expressions use estar:

Está nublado y está húmedo.

It's cloudy and humid.

These are impersonal uses of regular verbs, not a separate category. The "subject" is implicit and the verb stays in third-person singular.

Existence: hay, había, habrá

One of the most distinctive impersonal constructions in Spanish is the existential verb haber, used to mean "there is" or "there are." This form is completely fixed — it never conjugates for number or gender.

Tense	Form	English
Present	hay	there is / there are
Imperfect	había	there was / there were
Preterite	hubo	there was / there were (event)
Future	habrá	there will be
Conditional	habría	there would be

Hay dos gatos en el jardín.

There are two cats in the garden.

Notice that the verb is hay (singular form), even though the "subject" is dos gatos (plural). This is one of Spanish's most-violated rules by learners, but it's strict: existential haber is always singular.

Había muchas personas en la fiesta anoche.

There were many people at the party last night.

Había, not habían. Although regional speech sometimes pluralizes habían muchas personas, formal Spanish keeps the singular. Stick with the singular in writing.

Mañana habrá una reunión importante.

Tomorrow there will be an important meeting.

Time expressions

Telling time is another impersonal use — specifically, it's impersonal from the speaker's point of view, with no logical "subject" doing anything.

Es la una de la tarde.

It's one in the afternoon.

Son las ocho de la mañana.

It's eight in the morning.

For one o'clock, Spanish uses es (singular). For every other hour, it uses son (plural), because the noun las horas is plural. This is an unusual exception to the "third-person singular" rule, but it follows its own logic.

Other impersonal time expressions:

Expression	Meaning
Es tarde.	It's late.
Es temprano.	It's early.
Es de día.	It's daytime.
Es de noche.	It's nighttime.
Es lunes.	It's Monday.

Es muy tarde y todavía hay luz en la calle.

It's very late and there's still light in the street.

Other impersonal uses

Beyond weather, existence, and time, Spanish has other impersonal expressions:

Se dice que va a llover mañana.

They say it's going to rain tomorrow.

The se dice construction is impersonal — no specific "they" is named. Literally it's "it is said."

Basta con practicar un poco cada día.

It's enough to practice a little every day.

Basta ("it suffices") is an impersonal verb used with prepositional phrases or infinitives.

Why they're always singular

The unifying rule: if there's no logical subject, Spanish defaults to the third-person singular. This applies to weather verbs, hay, basta, conviene, importa, and many others. If you don't know who or what is doing the action, the verb stays third-person singular.

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The biggest trap: hay, había, and habrá always stay singular, even when followed by a plural noun. Hay muchos problemas, not han muchos problemas. Memorize this early and it'll save you countless mistakes.

Impersonal verbs are a small but essential category. They're the way Spanish talks about weather, existence, and time — things that simply happen, without anyone doing them.