Breakdown of Después de haber cenado, me siento relajado en mi cuarto.
Questions & Answers about Después de haber cenado, me siento relajado en mi cuarto.
Yes, both are correct, but they differ slightly in style and nuance.
Después de cenar, me siento relajado…
- Much more common in everyday speech.
- Neutral, natural, and what most people in Spain would normally say.
Después de haber cenado, me siento relajado…
- Sounds a bit more formal, careful, or written.
- The structure haber + past participle (cenado) highlights that the action is fully completed before the next one.
In practice, in Spain you will hear Después de cenar… far more often. Use después de haber cenado when you want to be extra explicit or are writing in a more formal or literary style.
Haber cenado is a perfect infinitive.
- haber = infinitive of haber
- cenado = past participle of cenar
Together, haber + past participle forms the perfect infinitive, which here expresses:
- an action completed beforehand:
- Después de haber cenado = after having eaten dinner / after having had dinner.
Spanish uses this form:
- after prepositions (después de, antes de, sin, por, al), and
- when you need to show that one action happens before another, with the same subject:
- Después de haber estudiado, salí con mis amigos.
Here después de works as a preposition.
When después is followed by a noun or an infinitive, Spanish requires de:
- después de la cena
- después de cenar
- después de haber cenado
Without de it’s incorrect here:
✗ Después haber cenado… (wrong)
When después is followed by a full clause with a conjugated verb, you normally use después de que:
- Después de que cené, me sentí relajado.
Everyday speech in Spain often drops de and says después que cené, but the recommended standard is después de que.
Yes, that’s also correct and very natural.
Comparison:
Después de haber cenado, me siento relajado…
- Uses a perfect infinitive (haber cenado).
- Slightly more formal or written.
Después de que cené, me sentí relajado…
- Uses a full clause with a conjugated verb (cené).
- Feels like ordinary narrative: After I ate, I felt relaxed…
Structural difference:
- después de + infinitive (same subject as the main verb)
- después de que + finite verb (subject can be same or different)
The meaning in time is the same: the relaxing happens after dinner.
Spanish distinguishes:
sentir algo = to feel something (with a direct object, usually a noun)
- Siento frío. = I feel cold.
- Siento miedo. = I feel fear.
sentirse + adjective/adverb = to feel (a certain way)
- Me siento cansado. = I feel tired.
- Me siento relajado. = I feel relaxed.
In your sentence, relajado is an adjective describing your state, so you need the reflexive form:
- me siento relajado (correct)
✗ siento relajado (ungrammatical in this meaning)
With a noun, you’d use sentir:
- Siento tensión. (I feel tension.)
Yes, and it’s very natural.
Nuance:
Estoy relajado.
- States your current state: I am relaxed.
- More descriptive.
Me siento relajado.
- Focuses on your subjective feeling: I feel relaxed.
- Slightly more internal or experiential.
In everyday Spanish with feelings or states (cansado, enfermo, feliz, nervioso, etc.) both estar and sentirse are common and often interchangeable.
The adjective relajado / relajada must agree in gender and number with the subject.
- Male speaker:
- Después de haber cenado, me siento relajado.
- Female speaker:
- Después de haber cenado, me siento relajada.
Plural examples:
- Mixed group or all men: Nos sentimos relajados.
- All women: Nos sentimos relajadas.
So relajado in the original sentence implies a grammatically masculine speaker (yo = male).
Cenado is the past participle of cenar.
In Spain, the usual meal verbs and nouns are:
- desayunar / el desayuno = breakfast
- comer / la comida = main midday meal (around 2–3 p.m.)
- cenar / la cena = evening meal / dinner
So haber cenado literally means “to have eaten dinner / to have had supper.”
In many parts of Latin America, comer can mean “to eat” in general, but cenar and la cena are still the standard for dinner.
Because the sentence starts with an introductory time phrase.
In Spanish, when an adverbial clause or phrase (time, condition, cause, etc.) comes before the main clause, you normally add a comma:
- Después de cenar, me voy a la cama.
- Cuando llego a casa, me quito los zapatos.
- Si llueve, no salgo.
If you move the time phrase after the main clause, you normally omit the comma:
- Me siento relajado en mi cuarto después de haber cenado.
Both word orders are correct; the comma marks the pause when the time expression is at the beginning.
All three can mean “in my (bed)room”, but they differ a bit in usage:
mi cuarto
- Very common in everyday spoken Spanish in Spain.
- Colloquial and natural: Voy a mi cuarto.
mi habitación
- Also very common.
- Neutral; used a lot for hotel rooms:
- ¿En qué habitación está usted?
mi dormitorio
- More literal/technical: the room where you sleep.
- Used, but sounds a bit more formal or descriptive in some contexts.
In your sentence, en mi cuarto is perfectly natural. You could also say:
- …en mi habitación.
- …en mi dormitorio.
The meaning is essentially the same.
Spanish usually drops subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, ella, etc.) because the verb ending already tells you the subject.
- siento (ending -o) = 1st person singular (yo)
- me also points to yo as the subject.
You only add yo for emphasis or contrast:
- Después de haber cenado, yo me siento relajado, pero mi hermano está nervioso.
So:
- Después de haber cenado, me siento relajado en mi cuarto.
is understood as - (Yo) me siento relajado en mi cuarto.
Yes, you can, with almost the same meaning:
Tras cenar, me siento relajado en mi cuarto.
- Tras = after; slightly more formal or written, but common.
Luego de cenar, me siento relajado en mi cuarto.
- Luego de is more typical in some Latin American varieties.
- In Spain, después de and tras are more common; luego de sounds more Latin-American.
The most neutral in Spain is still:
- Después de cenar…
All of them indicate that the relaxing happens after dinner; the choice mainly affects style and regional flavour.