Compound verbs are used much more often in English than they are in Spanish, since Spanish is able to use conjugation to indicate tenses that sometimes are expressed in English with compound verbs. For example, the future tense in English uses the auxiliary verb "will" as in "I will study." But Spanish needs no auxiliary verb in this case, as the future is expressed through a verb ending: estudiaré. English also uses the auxiliary verb "do" to form many questions, as in "Do you study?" A compound verb isn't needed in Spanish: ¿Estudias?
Two very common types of English compound verbs have equivalents in Spanish: In English, forms of "to have" are combined with the past participle to form the perfect tenses; in Spanish, haber is used. In English, forms of "to be" are combined with the present participle to form the progressive (or continuous) tenses; in Spanish, forms of estar are used with the gerund.
