Disculpar Conjugation in Spanish
Introduction
disculpar means "to excuse" in English, and it is one of the verbs you will meet constantly in everyday Spanish — for excusing someone, or apologising for something. Learning it properly means more than memorising one form: the verb changes across thirteen tenses, and this page gives you every one of them, with the exact forms from the VerbFlow engine, so you can check any person or tense in seconds. Disculpar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. That matters because the patterns on this page are the patterns you will reuse every time you speak or write. Work through the tables first, then read the notes under each tense — they explain when to use each tense and what to watch out for with this verb in particular. A natural example is: Cada día, yo disculpo a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Every day, I excuse my friend for arriving late." Once you can say that sentence confidently, try changing the person and the tense using the tables below.
Quick facts
| Infinitive | disculpar |
| Translation | to excuse |
| Verb type | Regular -ar verb |
| Gerund | disculpando |
| Past participle | disculpado |
| Auxiliary | haber (all compound tenses) |
| Irregular tenses | regular in every tense |
Full conjugation of disculpar
Present indicative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | disculpo |
| tú | disculpas |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpa |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculpamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculpáis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculpan |
Preterite
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | disculpé |
| tú | disculpaste |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpó |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculpamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculpasteis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculparon |
Imperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | disculpaba |
| tú | disculpabas |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpaba |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculpábamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculpabais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculpaban |
Future
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | disculparé |
| tú | disculparás |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpará |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculparemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculparéis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculparán |
Conditional
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | disculparía |
| tú | disculparías |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculparía |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculparíamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculparíais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculparían |
Present subjunctive
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | disculpe |
| tú | disculpes |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpe |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculpemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculpéis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculpen |
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | disculpara |
| tú | disculparas |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpara |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculpáramos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculparais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculparan |
Present perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | he disculpado |
| tú | has disculpado |
| él / ella / Ud. | ha disculpado |
| nosotros / nosotras | hemos disculpado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habéis disculpado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | han disculpado |
Pluperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | había disculpado |
| tú | habías disculpado |
| él / ella / Ud. | había disculpado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habíamos disculpado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habíais disculpado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habían disculpado |
Future perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habré disculpado |
| tú | habrás disculpado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habrá disculpado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habremos disculpado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habréis disculpado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrán disculpado |
Conditional perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habría disculpado |
| tú | habrías disculpado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habría disculpado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habríamos disculpado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habríais disculpado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrían disculpado |
Imperative — affirmative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | disculpa |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpe |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculpemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculpad |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculpen |
Imperative — negative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | disculpes |
| él / ella / Ud. | disculpe |
| nosotros / nosotras | disculpemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | disculpéis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | disculpen |
Gerund: disculpando · Past participle: disculpado
Disculpar in every tense — notes and examples
Present indicative
The present is the tense for habits, facts and what is happening now. It is the first tense to master, because the present subjunctive and the affirmative imperative are both built from the present yo form. Example: Cada día, yo disculpo a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Every day, I excuse my friend for arriving late."
Preterite
The preterite is for completed actions in the past — things that started and finished at a definite moment. Use it for a single event, a sequence of events, or an action with a clear end. Example: Ayer, yo disculpé a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Yesterday, I excused my friend for arriving late."
Imperfect
The imperfect is for the past without a definite end: habits, background scenes, descriptions and actions in progress when something else happened. It never states when the action finished. Example: Antes, yo disculpaba a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Before, I excused my friend for arriving late."
Future
The future is for what will happen, and also for guesses about the present ("I wonder if…"). For regular verbs it is the infinitive plus the endings -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -éis, -án. Example: Mañana, yo disculparé a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Tomorrow, I will excuse my friend for arriving late."
Conditional
The conditional is for what would happen — polite requests, hypothetical results and reported expectations. It shares its stem with the future, so any irregular future stem appears here too. Example: Yo disculparía a mi amigo por llegar tarde si tuviera la oportunidad. — "I would excuse my friend for arriving late if I had the chance."
Present subjunctive
The present subjunctive is for wishes, doubts, emotions and other non-facts after que, and after expressions such as ojalá, es importante que or no creo que. It is not a tense for stating facts. Example: Espero que ella disculpe a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "I hope she will excuse my friend for arriving late."
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
The imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms) is for wishes and doubts about the past, and for the if-part of hypothetical sentences (si + imperfect subjunctive, conditional). This page shows the -ra forms from the engine. Example: Si ella disculpara a mi amigo por llegar tarde, todo cambiaría. — "If she excused my friend for arriving late, everything would change."
Present perfect
The present perfect (haber + past participle) is for past actions connected to the present — recent events, experience, or something that has just happened. The auxiliary is always haber. Example: Yo he disculpado mi error con sinceridad varias veces. — "I have excused my mistake sincerely several times."
Pluperfect
The pluperfect (había + past participle) is the past of the past: something that had already happened before another past event. Example: Yo había disculpado a mi amigo por llegar tarde antes de la reunión. — "I had excused my friend for arriving late before the meeting."
Future perfect
The future perfect (habré + past participle) is for something that will already be finished by a future moment, or for a guess about the past. It is less common in speech than the simple future. Example: Para mañana, yo habré disculpado a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "By tomorrow, I will have excused my friend for arriving late."
Conditional perfect
The conditional perfect (habría + past participle) is for what would have happened — the past of the conditional, used for regrets and unreal past conditions. Example: Yo habría disculpado a mi amigo por llegar tarde si hubiera tenido tiempo. — "I would have excused my friend for arriving late if I had had time."
Imperative — affirmative
The affirmative imperative is for direct orders, instructions and invitations. The tú form comes from the present él/ella form, and the formal, nosotros and plural forms come from the present subjunctive. Example: ¡disculpa a mi amigo por llegar tarde! — "Excuse my friend for arriving late!"
Imperative — negative
The negative imperative (no + subjunctive) is for telling someone not to do something. All five persons come from the present subjunctive, which is why they look different from the affirmative tú form. Example: No disculpes a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Do not excuse my friend for arriving late."
Example sentences with disculpar
Yo disculpo a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "I excuse my friend for arriving late."
¿Tú disculpas mi error con sinceridad? — "Do you excuse my mistake sincerely?"
Ayer, él disculpó a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Yesterday, he excused my friend for arriving late."
Nosotros disculpamos mi error con sinceridad a tiempo. — "We excused my mistake sincerely on time."
Antes, ellos disculpaban a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "Before, they excused my friend for arriving late."
Mañana, yo disculparé mi error con sinceridad. — "Tomorrow, I will excuse my mistake sincerely."
Nosotros disculparíamos a mi amigo por llegar tarde si pudiéramos. — "We would excuse my friend for arriving late if we could."
Yo he disculpado mi error con sinceridad varias veces. — "I have excused my mistake sincerely several times."
Espero que ella disculpe a mi amigo por llegar tarde. — "I hope she will excuse my friend for arriving late."
Ahora mismo, yo estoy disculpando mi error con sinceridad. — "Right now, I am excusing my mistake sincerely."
Common mistakes with disculpar
1. Dropping the accent on the preterite yo form
The preterite yo form is disculpé — with the accent. Without it the word is misspelled, and in some verbs the accent is the only thing separating one tense from another.
2. Confusing disculpar with perdonar (to forgive)
disculpar means "to excuse", while perdonar means "to forgive". They overlap in English but they are not interchangeable in Spanish: use disculpar when you mean excusing someone, or apologising for something, and perdonar for its own meaning. Check the conjugation of perdonar before choosing.
3. Mixing up the preterite and the imperfect
Ayer yo disculpé a mi amigo por llegar tarde (preterite: one finished event yesterday) is not the same as antes yo disculpaba a mi amigo por llegar tarde (imperfect: what used to happen). If you can add "yesterday" or "last week", you usually want the preterite; if you can add "used to", you want the imperfect.
4. Using estar instead of haber in the perfect tenses
The present perfect is he disculpado (haber + participle), never estoy disculpado. Haber is the only auxiliary for compound tenses in Spanish.
5. Dropping the preposition before the complement
disculpar takes a here: yo disculpo a mi amigo por llegar tarde. Dropping the preposition (yo disculpo mi amigo por llegar tarde) sounds wrong to a native speaker, so learn the verb together with its preposition.
Quiz: disculpar
1. Yo ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde.
a. disculpa b. disculpo c. disculpan
2. Ella ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde.
a. disculpo b. disculpa c. disculpan
3. Ayer, yo ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde.
a. disculpo b. disculpé c. disculpa
4. Ellos ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde ayer.
a. disculpo b. disculparon c. disculpa
5. Antes, yo ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde.
a. disculpo b. disculpaba c. disculpa
6. Mañana, yo ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde.
a. disculpo b. disculparé c. disculpa
7. Yo ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde si pudiera.
a. disculpo b. disculparía c. disculpa
8. Espero que ella ___ a mi amigo por llegar tarde.
a. disculpo b. disculpe c. disculpa
9. Ahora mismo, yo estoy ___ mi error con sinceridad.
a. disculpado b. disculpando c. disculpo
10. Yo he ___ mi error con sinceridad varias veces.
a. disculpando b. disculpado c. disculpo
Answer key
disculpo — present tense, yo form.
disculpa — present tense, él/ella form.
disculpé — preterite, yo form — a finished action yesterday.
disculparon — preterite, ellos/ellas form.
disculpaba — imperfect, yo form — a past habit.
disculparé — future, yo form.
disculparía — conditional, yo form — a hypothetical.
disculpe — present subjunctive after 'espero que'.
disculpando — gerund — the progressive is estar + gerund.
disculpado — past participle — the present perfect is haber + participle.
Frequently asked questions about disculpar
What does disculpar mean in English?
Disculpar means "to excuse". It is used for excusing someone, or apologising for something. A simple example is yo disculpo a mi amigo por llegar tarde — "I excuse my friend for arriving late."
Is disculpar regular or irregular?
Disculpar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. The forms that most often catch learners out are the present yo form disculpo, the preterite yo form disculpé and the past participle disculpado — learn those three first, then fill in the rest from the tables above.
What is the gerund and the past participle of disculpar?
The gerund is disculpando (used for the progressive: estoy disculpando) and the past participle is disculpado (used with haber in all perfect tenses: he disculpado). Both forms are used constantly, so they are worth memorising on their own.
How do I say "I excuse" in the past?
It depends on the meaning. For one finished action use the preterite: ayer yo disculpé a mi amigo por llegar tarde — "yesterday I excused my friend for arriving late". For a past habit or background use the imperfect: antes yo disculpaba a mi amigo por llegar tarde — "before, I excused my friend for arriving late". The mistake most learners make is using one for the other.
Does disculpar take the subjunctive?
Not usually. Disculpar on its own takes the indicative — yo disculpo a mi amigo por llegar tarde. You will meet the subjunctive with disculpar only inside a larger construction that itself triggers it, such as no creo que or es importante que, and then the subjunctive form is disculpe.