The Perfect Tense Year 12

What is the Perfect Tense? The perfect tense is a verb form used to talk about what has or hasn’t happened; for example, I’ve broken my glasses; we haven’t spoken about it.

Using the perfect tense

- In Spanish the perfect tense is used in a similar way - In English, we use the perfect tense (have, has, or their shortened form ‘ve and ‘s followed by a past participle such as spoken, eaten, lived, been) to talk about what has or hasn’t happened today, this week, this year or in our lives up to now. - In Spanish the perfect tense is used in a similar way He terminado el libro I’ve finished the book Nunca ha estado en Bolivia He’s never been to Bolivia Ya se han ido They’ve already left

Forming the Perfect Tense As in English, the perfect tense in Spanish has two parts to it. These are: the present tense of the verb haber (meaning to have). a part of the main verb called the past participle.

Forming the Past Participle

To form the past participle of regular –ar verbs, take off the –ar ending of the infinitive and add –ado hablar (to speak) - hablado (speaking) To form the past participle of regular –er or –ir verbs, take off the –er or –ir ending of the infinitive and add –ido comer (to eat) - comido (eaten) vivir (to live) - vivido (lived)

The Prefect tense of some regular verbs The following table shows how you can combine the present tense of haber with the past participle of any verb to form the perfect tense. Present of haber Past participle yo he hablado tú has trabajado él/ella ha comido nosotros hemos vendido vosotros habéis vivido ellos/ellas han decidido

Note!! You should not confuse haber with tener. Even though they both mean to have, haber is only used for forming tenses and in certain impersonal expressions such as hay and había meaning there is, there are, there was, there were and so on.

Verbs with irregular past participles

Some past participles are irregular Some past participles are irregular. There aren’t too many, so try to learn them. abrir (to open) - abierto (opened) cubrir (to cover) - cubierto (covered) decir (to say) - dicho (said) escribir (to write) - escrito (written) freír (to fry) - frito (fried) hacer (to do) - hecho (done) morir (to die) - muerto (died) oír (to listen) - oído (heard) poner (to put) - puesto (put)

Reflexive verbs in the perfect tense The perfect tense of reflexive verbs is formed in the same way as for ordinary verbs. The reflexive pronouns (me, te, se, nos, os, se) come before he, has, ha, and so on. The table on the next page shows the perfect tense of lavarse in full.

yo me he lavado tú te has él/ella se ha nosotros nos hemos vosotros os Subject pronoun Reflexive pronoun Present tense of haber Past participle meaning yo me he lavado I have washed tú te has You have washed él/ella se ha He/she has washed nosotros nos hemos We have washed vosotros os habéis ellos/ellas han They have washed

Don’t use the perfect tense with desde, desde hace and hace…que when talking about how long something has been going on for. Use the present tense instead. Esta enferma desde julio he has been ill since july Hace mucho tiempo que salen juntos They have been going out together for a long time.

Key points The spanish perfect tense is formed using the present tense of haber and a past participle. In spanish the perfect tense is used very much as it is in English.