Los perfectos

Perfect Tenses Any perfect tense is a compound tense. But what is a compound tense? Easy!! A compound word is 2 words put together like: home + work= homework play + ground= playground. A compound tense is 2 verbs used together to form 1 tense.

Past Participle All perfect tenses are made up of two parts: the helping verb haber and the past participle of the main verb: helping verb past participle helping verb past participle He has eaten. We have seen. They have left. You have finished. I have studied. She has fallen.

¿Qué es el presente perfecto? The present perfect is formed by combining: The helping verb HABER (“have” or “has”) the past participle +

Past Participle All perfect tenses are made up of two parts: the helping verb and the past participle of the main verb: helping verb past participle helping verb past participle I have studied. We have seen You have finished. He has eaten. They have left. She has fallen. You all have helped.

This is how you form the past participle in Spanish: Drop the –ar and add –ado: hablar hablado nadar nadado pensar pensado almorzar almorzado llegar llegado estar estado Drop the –er or –ir and add –ido: comer comido poder podido aprender aprendido querer querido asistir asistido venir venido

There are, of course, irregular past participles in Spanish as there are in English. call have called jump have jumped look have looked eat have eated???? have eaten bring have bringed???? have brought

R roto E escrito V visto V vuelto M muerto A abierto C cubierto P puesto H hecho D dicho D devuelto

Not exactly irregular but… -er and –ir verbs whose stems end in a vowel have past participles ending in –ído caer → caído creer → creído leer → leído oír → oído reír → reído traer → traído

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.

Para formar en español In Spanish we form the present perfect by combining the present tense of the verb haber (the helping verb, or el verbo auxiliar) with a past participle For example: Yo he bailado. I have danced. Nosotros no hemos estudiado para el examen. We haven’t studied for the test.

The present tense of haber hemos has habéis ha han

Para formar… Here are the present perfect forms of estudiar: he estudiado hemos estudiado has estudiado habéis estudiado ha estudiado han estudiado

Now you try… On your notes, see if you can figure out the present perfect forms for the verb hablar: he ________ hemos _______ has ________ habéis ________ ha ________ han ________

Is this what you came up with? he hablado hemos hablado has hablado habéis hablado ha hablado han hablado

Let’s try another… Now see if you can form the present perfect forms of the verb tomar: __ ________ ____ _______ ___ ________ _____ ________

Is this what you got? he tomado hemos tomado has tomado habéis tomado ha tomado han tomado

Let’s try another one…see if you can come up with the present perfect tense of ir: __ ___ _____ ___ ___ ___ ______ ___ ___ ______

Is this what you came up with? he ido hemos ido has ido habéis ido ha ido han ido

Many of you may have assumed that ir had an irregular past participle Many of you may have assumed that ir had an irregular past participle. Afterall, it does have an irregular present participle. But ir is actually regular in this form.

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.

Pluperfect (Past Perfect) (Pluscuamperfecto) The past perfect (also called the pluperfect and, in Spanish, the pluscuamperfecto), remember, is the past of the past and translates with “had” in English. ALL perfect tenses get a helping verb and a past participle: present perfect he has eaten past perfect he had eaten future perfect he will have eaten conditional perfect he would have eaten

había hablado habíamos hablado As you saw, the present perfect tense has a set of helping verbs that come from “haber”: he hemos has habéis ha han The same is true of the past perfect. The helping verbs for the past perfect are the imperfect form of “haber”: había hablado habíamos hablado habías hablado habíais hablado había hablado habían hablado

Note that the endings on “haber” for the past perfect are the endings for the imperfect tense: había habíamos habías habíais había habían The present perfect is the PRESENT tense of “haber” + the past participle. The past perfect tense is the IMPERFECT (PAST) tense of “haber” + the past participle. Guess what the future perfect tense is composed of. But that’s another lesson.

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.