Breakdown of Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
Questions & Answers about Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
- Después de llegar and después de haber llegado are both grammatically correct.
- Después de llegar uses the simple infinitive (llegar).
- Después de haber llegado uses the perfect infinitive (haber llegado), which emphasizes that the action of arriving is fully completed before the next action.
Nuance:
Después de llegar a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
→ Neutral, very common; simply “after arriving home, I feel calmer.”Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
→ Slightly more formal or careful; it underlines that the arrival is already finished when the feeling of calm starts.
Después de llegando is incorrect. After después de, you use:
- a noun (después de la cena)
- a pronoun (después de eso)
- or an infinitive (después de llegar / después de haber llegado),
but not a gerund (llegando).
In everyday spoken Spanish (including in Spain), después de llegar is more common and completely fine.
You might choose después de haber llegado when:
- you want to be especially precise about the sequence of events, or
- you are writing something more formal (an essay, a report, a narration with careful style).
In this specific sentence, both are natural:
- Después de llegar a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
- Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
A native from Spain would probably use después de llegar a bit more often in casual conversation.
A casa is used with a verb of movement, showing direction:
- Llego a casa. – I arrive home.
- Vuelvo a casa. – I go back home.
En casa is used with a verb of state or location, showing where something or someone is:
- Estoy en casa. – I am at home.
- Me siento más tranquilo en casa. – I feel calmer at home.
In your sentence, llegar is a verb of motion, so a casa is correct:
Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
No, in this meaning you need the reflexive pronoun me.
Sentir (non‑reflexive) usually means to feel something (an object, emotion, etc.):
- Siento frío. – I feel cold.
- Siento miedo. – I feel fear.
Sentirse (reflexive: me siento, te sientes, se siente...) means to feel (a certain way / in a certain state):
- Me siento tranquilo. – I feel calm.
- Me siento cansado. – I feel tired.
So:
- Me siento más tranquilo. – Correct: I feel calmer.
- Siento más tranquilo. – Incorrect in standard Spanish.
Here, me siento is not from sentarse, even though they look the same in the first person singular.
There are two different verbs:
Sentir / sentirse – to feel
- Me siento más tranquilo. – I feel calmer.
Sentarse – to sit down
- Me siento en el sofá. – I sit down on the sofa.
They only look identical in yo present indicative:
- Yo me siento (from sentirse) – I feel
- Yo me siento (from sentarse) – I sit down
You know which one it is from the context. With an adjective like tranquilo, it must be sentirse.
Tranquilo agrees in gender and number with the person who feels that way.
- If the speaker is a man:
- me siento tranquilo or me siento más tranquilo
- If the speaker is a woman:
- me siento tranquila or me siento más tranquila
For example:
- A man: Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
- A woman: Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquila.
If you are talking about several people:
- Group of men / mixed group: Nos sentimos más tranquilos.
- Group of women: Nos sentimos más tranquilas.
Más adds the idea of comparison or increase: “more calm”, “calmer”.
- Me siento tranquilo. – I feel calm.
- Me siento más tranquilo. – I feel calmer / more calm (than before, than outside, etc.).
You can intensify it further:
- Me siento mucho más tranquilo. – I feel much calmer.
- Me siento muchísimo más tranquilo. – I feel way more calm.
Without extra context, más tranquilo usually implies “compared to how I felt before arriving.”
The word order is flexible here. Both are correct:
- Después de haber llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
- Me siento más tranquilo después de haber llegado a casa.
Differences:
- Starting with Después de haber llegado a casa slightly emphasizes the time frame or condition.
- Starting with Me siento más tranquilo slightly emphasizes the feeling.
In normal conversation, many speakers would naturally say:
- Me siento más tranquilo después de llegar a casa.
This is a case of sequence of events in time within one sentence:
- Haber llegado expresses an action that is completed before another action.
- Me siento is in the present; it describes how you currently feel.
So the meaning is:
- Once I have arrived home (that has already happened), I feel calmer (now / generally).
Using the perfect infinitive (haber llegado) makes that ordering clear:
- First: llegar a casa
- Then: sentirse más tranquilo
Yes, that is very natural and maybe more common in daily Spanish:
- Cuando llego a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
Differences in nuance:
Después de (haber) llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
- Focuses on the time after the arrival.
- Slightly more formal or narrative.
Cuando llego a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
- Describes a habitual situation: every time I arrive home, I feel calmer.
- Very natural in conversational Spanish.
In many contexts they can be used almost interchangeably, but cuando llego sounds more straightforward and typical in everyday speech.
For this specific sentence, usage is almost identical across Spain and Latin America:
- Después de (haber) llegado a casa, me siento más tranquilo.
Points to note for Spain:
- The adjective tranquilo is very common in Spain, not only meaning calm, but also in expressions like:
- Tranquilo, no pasa nada. – Relax, it is okay / do not worry.
- In your sentence, though, it simply means calm / relaxed, and that meaning is shared everywhere.
So you can safely use this structure in both Spain and Latin America without sounding regionally marked.