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Cifrar is a Spanish verb which translates into English as “to encode”.
Below are all of the conjugations for cifrar in Spanish, in all three moods (indicative/indicativo, subjunctive/subjunctivo and imperative/imperativo) and all of the tenses, for each pronoun.
The vosotros pronoun is mainly used in mainland Spain, and is the informal second-person plural – it could be considered the Spanish version of “y’all”. It is rarely found in Latin America, where ustedes is used instead.
The vos form is used instead of tú in some Spanish speaking countries of South America, especially the Southern Cone (e.g. Argentina and Uruguay) and has a different conjugation.
| English Infinitive | to encode |
|---|---|
| Spanish Infinitive | cifrar |
The gerund (gerundio) is used with the continuous tenses, e.g. present continuous (está cifrando) and past continuous (estaba cifrando). The easiest way to think of it is the equivalent of english’s -ing form (e.g. encoding).
The past participle (participio) is used with perfect tense ‘haber’ verbs, e.g. he cifrado and hubiera cifrado. These are the equivalent of English’s ‘have’ (e.g. have encoded).
| Gerundio / Gerund | cifrando |
|---|---|
| Participio / Past Participle | cifrado |
The basic form of speech, el indicativo is used for making statements, talking about facts, events and things that are certain and objective.
The present tense is as it sounds – it’s for talking about things that are currently going on, which are habitual, or which generally exist. In English, this would be “I encode” or “they encode”.
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | cifro |
| Tú | cifras |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifra |
| Nosotros / as | ciframos |
| Vosotros / as | cifráis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifran |
| Vos | cifrás |
Your simple past tense, e.g. “I encoded” or “she encoded” in English.
In Spanish, there are two past tenses where just one is used in English; the pretérite infefinido is typically used to refer to a concrete, specific moment in time.
| Pronoun | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Yo | cifré | I encoded |
| Tú | cifraste | You encoded |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifró | He / she / you encoded |
| Nosotros / as | ciframos | We encoded |
| Vosotros / as | cifrasteis | You encoded |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifraron | They / you encoded |
| Vos | cifraste | You encoded |
The pretérito imperfecto roughly translates as “I was encoding” or “she was encoding” in English, and is typically used to describe things and set a scene, talk about events without a specific timeframe, or talk about habitual events or states in the past.
| Pronoun | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Yo | cifraba | I was encoding |
| Tú | cifrabas | You were encoding |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifraba | He was / she was / you were encoding |
| Nosotros / as | cifrábamos | We were encoding |
| Vosotros / as | cifrabais | You were encoding |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifraban | They / you were encoding |
| Vos | cifrabas | You were encoding |
The perfect tense is for talking about things which happened in the past but are still related to the present or continue into the present.
In English, these use the auxiliary verbs ‘have’ and ‘has’ – i.e. “I have encoded” and “she has encoded”.
| Pronoun | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Yo | he cifrado | I have encoded |
| Tú | has cifrado | You have encoded |
| Él / Ella / Usted | ha cifrado | He has / she has / you have encoded |
| Nosotros / as | hemos cifrado | We have encoded |
| Vosotros / as | habéis cifrado | You have encoded |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | han cifrado | They / you have encoded |
| Vos | has cifrado | You have encoded |
The conditional is used in place of the English modal verb “would”, i.e. “I would encode” or “she would encode”. It can be used to talk about hypothetical situations.
| Pronoun | Spanish | Englush |
|---|---|---|
| Yo | cifraría | I would encode |
| Tú | cifrarías | You would encode |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifraría | He / she / you would encode |
| Nosotros / as | cifraríamos | We would encode |
| Vosotros / as | cifraríais | You would encode |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifrarían | They / you would encode |
| Vos | cifrarías | You would encode |
The future tense, simply put, replaces the English modal verb “will” – i.e. “I will encode” or “they will encode”.
It is more commonly used for making a hypothesis about the present. To talk about the future, Spanish speakers frequently use “ir + a + infinivo”, e.g. “van a cifrar” means “They are going to encode”.
| Pronoun | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Yo | cifraré | I will encode |
| Tú | cifrarás | You will encode |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifrará | He / she / you will encode |
| Nosotros / as | cifraremos | We will encode |
| Vosotros / as | cifraréis | You will encode |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifrarán | They / you will encode |
| Vos | cifrarás | You will encode |
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | cifre |
| Tú | cifres |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifre |
| Nosotros / as | cifremos |
| Vosotros / as | cifréis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifren |
| Vos | cifres |
There are two ways to form the imperfect subjunctive.
The first option sees verbs ending in -era (for -er and -ir verbs) and -ara (for -ar verbs), while the second sees verbs ending in -ese (for -er and -ir verbs) and -ase (for -ar verbs).
There is no difference between these two forms, and Spanish speakers use them interchangeably.
| Pronoun | Spanish era/ara | Spanish ese/ase |
|---|---|---|
| Yo | cifrara | cifrase |
| Tú | cifraras | cifrase |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifrara | cifrase |
| Nosotros / as | cifráramos | cifrásemos |
| Vosotros / as | cifrarais | cifraseis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifraran | cifrasen |
| Vos | cifraras | cifrase |
The future subjunctive is no longer used in modern-day Spanish, apart from in literary and legal contexts, and there is no need to learn it.
It is formed the same as the past/imperfect subjunctive, but with -e endings instead of -a endings.
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | cifrare |
| Tú | cifrares |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifrare |
| Nosotros / as | cifráremos |
| Vosotros / as | cifrareis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifraren |
| Vos | cifrares |
Used for forming positive and negative commands, e.g. “encode!” and “don’t encode!”.
| Pronoun | Spanish Affirmative | Spanish Negative |
|---|---|---|
| Tú | cifra | no cifres |
| Él / Ella / Usted | cifre | no cifre |
| Nosotros / as | cifremos | no cifremos |
| Vosotros / as | cifrad | no cifréis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | cifren | no cifren |
| Vos | cifrá | no cifres |
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | haya cifrado |
| Tú | hayas cifrado |
| Él / Ella / Usted | haya cifrado |
| Nosotros / as | hayamos cifrado |
| Vosotros / as | hayáis cifrado |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | hayan cifrado |
| Vos | hayas cifrado |
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | hubiera cifrado / hubiese cifrado |
| Tú | hubieras cifrado / hubieses cifrado |
| Él / Ella / Usted | hubiera cifrado / hubiese cifrado |
| Nosotros / as | hubiéramos cifrado / hubiésemos cifrado |
| Vosotros / as | hubierais cifrado / hubieseis cifrado |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | hubieran cifrado / hubiesen cifrado |
| Vos | hubieras cifrado / hubieses cifrado |
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | hubiere cifrado |
| Tú | hubieres cifrado |
| Él / Ella / Usted | hubiere cifrado |
| Nosotros / as | hubiéremos cifrado |
| Vosotros / as | hubiereis cifrado |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | hubieren cifrado |
| Vos | hubieres cifrado |
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | esté cifrando |
| Tú | estés cifrando |
| Él / Ella / Usted | esté cifrando |
| Nosotros / as | estemos cifrando |
| Vosotros / as | estéis cifrando |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | estén cifrando |
| Vos | estés cifrando |
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | estuviera cifrando / estuviese cifrando |
| Tú | estuvieras cifrando / estuvieses cifrando |
| Él / Ella / Usted | estuviera cifrando / estuviese cifrando |
| Nosotros / as | estuviéramos cifrando / estuviésamos cifrando |
| Vosotros / as | estuvierais cifrando / estuvieseis cifrando |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | estuviera cifrando / estuviese cifrando |
| Vos | estuvieras cifrando / estuvieses cifrando |
| Pronoun | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Yo | estuviere cifrando |
| Tú | estuvieres cifrando |
| Él / Ella / Usted | estuviere cifrando |
| Nosotros / as | estuviéremos cifrando |
| Vosotros / as | estuviereis cifrando |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | estuviere cifrando |
| Vos | estuvieres cifrando |
Voseo is the practice of using ‘vos’ instead of ‘tú’ as the second-person singular pronoun, and is common throughout much of South America.
There are various versions of ‘voseo’ used throughout the Spanish-speaking world. The conjugations for the most common type – used throughout Argentina, parts of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguya and Uruguay are below.
The present indicative (presente de indicativo) and affirmative imperative (imperativo) have different conjugations from the tú form, while all other tenses generally use the tú form.
| Tense | Vos Conjugation |
|---|---|
| Present Indicative Presente de Indicativo | Vos cifrás |
| Simle Past / Preterite Preterite de Indicativo | Vos cifraste |
| Imperfect Past Preterite Imperfecto de Indicativo | Vos cifrabas |
| Conditional Condicional | Vos cifrarías |
| Future Futuro de Indicativo | Vos cifrarás |
| Present Subjunctive Presente de Subjunctivo | Vos cifres |
| Imperfect Subjunctive Imperfecto de Subjunctivo | Vos cifraras / Vos cifrase |
| Affirmative Imperative Imperativo | Vos cifrá |
| Negative Imperative Imperativo Negativo | Vos no cifres |