Acabo de abrir la ventana.

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Breakdown of Acabo de abrir la ventana.

• abrir: to open
• la ventana: the window
• acabar de: to have just

Questions & Answers about Acabo de abrir la ventana.

What does Acabo de abrir la ventana mean, and how does the acabar de + infinitive structure work?

It literally reads “I finish of opening the window,” but Spanish uses acabar de + infinitive as a fixed way to say you’ve just done something. So Acabo de abrir la ventana means “I have just opened the window,” or more naturally in English, “I just opened the window” (a moment ago).

Why is abrir in the infinitive form rather than a conjugated verb?

In the acabar de + infinitive construction, acabar conveys the tense/person (here first-person present: acabo) and must be followed by de + the infinitive of the main action. The action itself (here abrir) stays in the infinitive.

What tense and person is acabo?

Acabo is the first-person singular (yo) form of acabar in the present indicative. In this periphrasis it signals “I just did …” whatever follows.

Why is there a de after acabo? Doesn’t acabar sometimes take a direct object?

When acabar means “to finish something,” it can take a direct object (e.g., Acabé la novela). But in the sense of “to have just done something,” Spanish requires acabar de + infinitive. The de is an integral part of that “just did” meaning.