Creer conjugation: Every tense, with examples

Creer is one of the verbs you are going to need to talk about beliefs, express doubt or even in situations that call for an idiomatic phrase. Creer in Spanish is a very common verb like ser, estar, tener or hacer.

By now, if you haven’t realized yet, verb conjugation is quite a big deal when learning Spanish. Knowing the creer conjugation in Spanish will be of great use to any Spanish learner, beginner or advanced. That’s why with today’s conjugation post we’re going to make you things easier.

We’ll start our post on creer conjugation with a section about all possible meanings this verb may have. Then, we’ll dive into the conjugation sections. First, we’ll show you creer conjugation divided by mood: indicative, subjunctive and imperative. Each mood, in turn, will be broken by tenses, ultimately providing the creer conjugation chart for each and every tense.

Creer in Spanish is an irregular verb since in some tenses, the ending changes to -y-. We’ll focus on these irregularities more in detail in each case later on. By the end of the post, we’ll have seen every creer conjugation in Spanish and you’ll be able to practice what you’ve learnt with a set of exercises prepared specially for you.

Now let’s dive into creer conjugation, ¡Creemos que te va a gustar! – We think you’re going to like it!

Creer Meanings

Let’s take some time to familiarize ourselves with the meanings of creer in Spanish.

One of the meanings of creer is to believe in the truth, existence or effectiveness of someone or something.

• Scientists don’t believe in God. – Los científicos no creen en Dios.

• We always believed in what Alberto said. – Siempre creímos en lo que dijo Alberto.

• Teachers believe in the best learning strategy. – Los maestros creen en la mejor estrategia de aprendizaje.

Another creer meaning is to think or have an opinion about someone or something.

• I think that jogging every day is good for your health. – Creo que trotar todos los días es beneficioso para la salud.

• We both thought that the best thing to do was to continue without looking back. – Ambos creímos que lo mejor era continuar sin mirar atrás.

• Felipe has always thought that you are cool. – Felipe siempre ha creído que tú eres genial.

We can use creer also to express doubt or probability.

• I think that we can finish the work in a couple of hours. – Creo que podremos terminar el trabajo en un par de horas.

• We believe that the thieves are hidden in the woods. – Creemos que los ladrones están escondidos en el bosque.

• I believe the problem is elsewhere. – Creo que el problema está en otro lugar.

• I don’t think that winning the championship is possible. – No creo que sea posible ganar el campeonato.

Note that, as shown in the last example, when creer is used in the negative form, the following verb should be conjugated in the subjunctive mood.

Creer can be very useful whenever you need to express that you have faith in or trust in something or someone.

• Martín had fatih in Jessica when no one else did. – Martín creyó en Jessica cuando nadie más lo hacía.

• Jesús’s parents always trusted in his project of becoming president. –  Los padres de Jesús siempre creyeron en su proyecto de ser presidente.

Creer Conjugation

From now on, this post will be all about conjugation. We’ll cover each and every mood and tense of creer conjugation accompanied by many examples for you to grasp the verb creer at all times.

We’ll offer additional links to our other dedicated posts that provide more detailed explanations for each individual mood and tense. In case you want to have a broader overview of verb tenses now, we can even recommend our extensive post on all the verb tenses in Spanish.

Indicative Mood

The indicative mood in Spanish is used to talk about facts, objective reality, and actions that are certain or concrete. In this section of our post, we’ll cover all the tenses of the indicative mood: present, preterite, imperfect, conditional, future, and all the perfect forms of the verb creer.

Creer conjugation present tense

Creer in the present tense follows the pattern of any -er ending regular verb.

Personal pronoun	Creer conjugation present tense
Yo	creo
Tú	crees
Él, Ella, Usted	cree
Nosotros, Nosotras	creemos
Vosotros, Vosotras	creéis
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	creen

• I believe in you and I know you can do it. – Creo en ti y sé que puedes lograrlo.

• He thinks his team will win the game. – Él cree que su equipo ganará el partido.

• The teacher believes in his students’ potential. – El profesor cree en el potencial de sus estudiantes.

In case you need to refresh your present tense knowledge in Spanish, check out our dedicated post on present tense conjugation.

Creer preterite conjugation

You will see that in the preterite tense, the verb creer does undergo some irregular changes in its conjugation. Specifically in the él/ella/usted and ustedes/ellos/ellas forms, the endings change from – i to -y.

Personal pronoun	Creer conjugation preterite tense
Yo	creí
Tú	creíste
Él, Ella, Usted	creyó
Nosotros, Nosotras	creímos
Vosotros, Vosotras	creísteis
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	creyeron

• The judges believed in the witnesses testimony. – Los jueces creyeron en el testimonio de los testigos.

• Did you think I was going to arrive on time? – ¿Tú creíste que iba a llegar a tiempo?

• My kids always believed in Santa. – Mis hijos siempre creyeron en Santa.

For more information about this tense, check out our post on the preterite tense in Spanish.

Creer imperfect conjugation

The imperfect conjugation of creer remains as any regular verb where the endings are: -ía, -ías, -ían, -íamos and -íais.

Personal pronoun	Creer conjugation imperfect tense
Yo	creía
Tú	creías
Él, Ella, Usted	creía
Nosotros, Nosotras	creíamos
Vosotros, Vosotras	creíais
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	creían

• Back then, I thought you were the love of my life. – En ese entonces, yo creía que tú eras el amor de mi vida.

• We used to believe in the mysteries of the horoscope. – Creíamos en los misterios del horóscopo.

• I believed in magic when I was a boy. – Yo creía en la magia cuando era niño.

We know that the imperfect tense can cause confusion. If that’s your case, take a look at our post on how to use the imperfect tense in Spanish.

Creer conditional conjugation

Note that the conditional conjugation of creer is similar to the imperfect conjugation in that they both share the same endings. However, unlike the imperfect, in the conditional tense, the root creer remains consistent across all the personal pronoun conjugations.

Personal pronoun	Creer conjugation conditional tense
Yo	creería
Tú	creerías
Él, Ella, Usted	creería
Nosotros, Nosotras	creeríamos
Vosotros, Vosotras	creeríais
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	creerían

• You would never believe what Juan told me yesterday . – Nunca creerías lo que me dijo Juan ayer.

• If she were more honest, I would trust in her. – Creería en ella si fuera más honesta.

• If they knew my story, they would believe in love at first sight. – Si supieran mi historia, creerían en el amor a primera vista.

In case you need to refresh your ideas about the conditional tense in Spanish, we invite you to take a look at our post on conditional tense in Spanish.

Creer future conjugation

The future conjugation of creer is quite simple. You just need to add the endings for the regular verbs ending in -er to the root creer.

Personal pronoun	Creer conjugation future tense
Yo	creeré
Tú	creerás
Él, Ella, Usted	creerá
Nosotros, Nosotras	creeremos
Vosotros, Vosotras	creeréis
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	creerán

• Will we ever believe in extraterrestrial life in the future? – ¿Alguna vez creeremos en la vida extraterrestre en el futuro?

• We will trust in you when you stop lying. – Creeremos en ti cuando dejes de mentir.

• When he sees the empty house, he’ll think there’s no one there. – Cuando vea la casa vacía creerá que no hay nadie allí.

For more information on how to use the future tense in Spanish, take a look at our dedicated post on how to speak about the future.

Creer compound tenses

In this section, we introduce the perfect forms of the verb creer in a couple of conjugation charts.

As in any compound verb form, we need to conjugate the verb haber, which functions as an auxiliary, and add the participle of the ver creer: creído.

Personal pronouns	Present perfect	Past perfect
Yo	he creído	había creído
Tú	has creído	habías creído
Él, Ella, Usted	ha creído	había creído
Nosotros, Nosotras	hemos creído	habíamos creído
Vosotros, Vosotras	habéis creído	habíais creído
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	han creído	habían creído

• Jorge has always believed in God. – Jorge siempre ha creído en Dios.

• My friend and I had believed in your potential from the beginning. – Mi amigo y yo habíamos creído en tu potencial desde el comienzo.

Personal pronouns	Perfect future	Perfect conditional
Yo	habré creído	habría creído
Tú	habrás creído	habrías creído
Él, Ella, Usted	habrá creído	habría creído
Nosotros, Nosotras	habremos creído	habríamos creído
Vosotros, Vosotras	habréis creído	habríais creído
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	habrán creído	habrían creído

• By the time I finish that book, I will have believed in the magic of literature. – Cuando termine de leer ese libro, habré creído en la magia de la literatura.

• I would have trusted in you if you hadn’t lied so much before. – Habría creído en ti si no hubieras mentido tanto antes.

If you need to go deeper in these perfect tenses, we recommend you read our dedicated posts on present perfect in Spanish, past perfect, future perfect tense.

Subjunctive Mood

The subjunctive mood is commonly used in Spanish. That’s why is crucial to know how to conjugate the verb creer in this mood.

The subjunctive mood in Spanish is used to express doubt, uncertainty, desire, judgment, possibility and necessity.

For a comprehensive exploration of the Spanish subjunctive mood, we suggest referring to our article on Spanish subjunctive.

By now, let’s focus on the different creer subjunctive conjugations!

Creer present subjunctive

The present subjunctive of the verb creer is similar to the indicative present tense. You only need to exchange the -e for an -a in all the endings.

Personal pronoun	Creer subjunctive present conjugation
Yo	crea
Tú	creas
Él, Ella, Usted	crea
Nosotros, Nosotras	creamos
Vosotros, Vosotras	creáis
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	crean

• Maybe they believe in ghosts. – Quizá crean en fantasmas.

• Probably they believe what you’re saying. – Problamente crean lo que les estás diciendo.

• I need you to trust in me. – Necesito que creas en mí.

For more information on this subjunctive tense, check out our post on present subjunctive in Spanish.

Creer imperfect subjunctive

The imperfect subjunctive of creer is irregular in that the stem changes to crey-. In the following conjugation chart, you will see that we’ve included the two variants of the creer imperfect subjunctive conjugation.

Personal pronoun	Creer subjunctive imperfect conjugation
Yo	creyera / creyese
Tú	creyeras / creyeses
Él, Ella, Usted	creyera / creyese
Nosotros, Nosotras	creyéramos / creyésemos
Vosotros, Vosotras	creyerais / creyeseis
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	creyeran / creyesen

• If only you believed in me. – Si tan solo creyeran en mí.

• If you believed in Santa, you would get more presents in Christmas. – Si creyeras en Santa, recibirías más regalos en Navidad.

• I was surprised by the fact that you didn’t believe in extraterrestrial life. – Me sorprendió que ustedes no creyeran en la existencia de vida extraterrestre.

For a piece of in-depth information about imperfect subjunctive, take a look at our imperfect subjunctive Spanish conjugation post.

Compound creer subjunctive conjugations

Just as we explained with the compound conjugations in the indicative mood, the perfect forms in the subjunctive also require the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb haber, combined with the past participle, creído.

Personal pronouns	Perfect subjunctive	Pluperfect subjunctive
Yo	haya creído	hubiera / hubiese creído
Tú	hayas creído	hubieras / hubieses creído
Él, Ella, Usted	haya creído	hubiera / hubiese creído
Nosotros, Nosotras	hayamos creído	hubiéramos / hubiésemos creído
Vosotros, Vosotras	hayáis creído	hubierais / hubieseis creído
Ustedes, Ellos, Ellas	hayan creído	hubieran / hubiesen creído

• It’s weird they didn’t trusted us. – Es extraño que no hayan creído en nosotros.

• I wish we had believed in his warnings before making that decision. – Ojalá hubiéramos creído en sus advertencias antes de tomar esa decisión.

Imperative Mood

The imperative mood in Spanish is used to give orders, suggestions or commands. The verb creer in the imperative mood is not that common in Spanish. Instead, we use pensar – to think or considerar – consider. However, we’ll leave you with a conjugation chart for the sake of completeness.

Personal pronouns	Imperative conjugation
Tú	cree
Usted	crea
Vosotros, Vosotras	creed
Ustedes	crean

• Believe in me and you’ll see amazing results. – Cree en mí y verás resultados sorprendentes.

• The priest said: “Believe in God and you’ll have the promised land”. – El sacerdote dijo: “Crean en Dios y tendrán la tierra prometida”.

Some Everyday Expressions with Creer

Now that you know all the formal information about creer, let’s get relaxed and move on to the most commonly used phrases with creer native speakers always use.

Creer o reventar

Believe it or not

This phrase translates literally as Believe or burst. It implies that one is willing to believe something, even if it seems unlikely or extraordinary.

• El niño de 4 años habla 5 idiomas ¡Creer o reventar! – The 4 years old kid speaks 5 languages. Believe it or not!

Creer a ciegas

To believe blindly

This phrase means to believe in something or someone with no evidence or empirical account of it.

• Creí a ciegas en mi representante. Nunca se equivoca. – I believed blindly in my manager. He’s always right.

Creerse el ombligo del mundo

To think one is the center of the universe

It is an expression used to describe someone who has an inflated sense of self-importance or believes that they are the most important or central person in any situation.

•  María siempre se cree el ombligo del mundo y espera que todos estén pendientes de ella. – María always thinks she is the center of the universe and expects everyone to revolve around her.

If you feel like learning more idiomatic expressions in general, check out our article on essential idiomatic expressions in Spanish.

Conclusion

So far so good! In today’s post, we have provided you with a complete set of conjugations for the verb creer in Spanish. We have covered all three moods and every tense, including examples for each conjugation to demonstrate how creer is used in different contexts.

At the beginning of our post, we also included some basic definitions of the verb creer. It was quite clear that creer in Spanish can be translated into English as to believe, to think or to trust.

Now that you know all there is to know about the conjugation of creer, why not give it a shot with the following exercises? ¿Crees que lo harás bien? – Do you think you’ll do it OK? We bet you’ll rock it!

Exercises

Provide the correct conjugation for creer according to the mood and tense in parentheses. The answers and translations are below.

1. Los niños _____ que somos geniales. (Indicative: present)

2. Mauro _____ en fantasmas toda su vida. (Indicative: present perfect)

3. Arturo _____ que lograríamos comprar todo rápido. (Indicative: preterite)

4. Juan y Florencia _____ en la reencarnación. (Indicative: imperfect)

5. Los investigadores _____ que el ladrón está cerca del centro comercial. (Indicative: conditional)

6. Nuestros padres _____ que nos fuimos de viaje si no nos ven en casa. (Indicative: future)

7. Ojalá el banco _____ en mí y me de el préstamo. (Subjunctive: present)

8. Si Marina _____ en su capacidad para escribir, sería una autora excepcional. (Subjunctive: imperfect)

9. Dudo que Luis _____ esa historia increíble. (Subjunctive: perfect)

10. Marcela no para de hablar de sí misma. Se _____ el ombligo del mundo. (Indicative: present)

Answers

1. Los niños creen que somos geniales. – The kids believe we are cool.

2. Mauro ha creído en fantasmas toda su vida. – Maura has believed in ghosts all his life.

3. Arturo creyó que lograríamos comprar todo rápido. – Arturo thought we’d manage to buy it all fast.

4. Juan y Florencia creían en la reencarnación. – Juan y Florencia used to believe in reincarnation.

5. Los investigadores creerían que el ladrón está cerca del centro comercial. – The investigators would think that the thief is near the shopping mall.

6. Nuestros padres creerán que nos fuimos de viaje si no nos ven en casa. – Our parents would think we have traveled if they can’t see us at home.

7. Ojalá el banco crea en mí y me de el préstamo. – I wish the bank trusts in me and grants me the loan.

8. Si Marina creyera en su capacidad para escribir, sería una autora excepcional. – If María believed in her writing skills, she’d be an exceptional author.

9. Dudo que Luis haya creído esa historia increíble. – I doubt Luis had believed in such an unbelievable story.

10. Marcela no para de hablar de sí misma. Se cree el ombligo del mundo. – Marcela speaks constantly about herself. She thinks she’s the center of the universe.