Present Perfect and Pluperfect

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 He has eaten. We have seen. They have left. You have finished. I have studied. She has fallen.

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 leer leído querer querido asistir asistido venir venido

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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

You have to memorize the irregular past participles in Spanish just as you do in English. volver vuelto (NOT volvido) poner puesto (NOT ponido) abrir abierto etc. cubrir cubierto escribir escrito ver visto morir muerto decir dicho hacer hecho romper roto

Pluscuamperfecto Cuando Ricardo llegó ya habíamos comido toda la pizza. Antes de que murió, Reinaldo había escrito muchos libros. Antes de ir al espectáculo, Jose había terminado su tarea. Ella había recibido una bicicleta antes de su fiesta.

Helping Verb Now you need a helping verb to go with your past participles. What we use is the present tense of the verb “haber.” he hablado hemos hablado has hablado habéis hablado ha hablado han hablado Use these verb forms with all your past participles: he comido, has querido, ha vuelto, hemos trabajado, etc.

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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.