The Present Perfect and Pluperfect

The Present Perfect In English we form the present perfect tense by combining have or has with the past participle of a verb: he has seen, have you tried?, they haven’t eaten.

The Present Perfect To form the past participle of a verb in Spanish, you add -ado to the stem of -ar verbs and -ido to the stem of most -er/-ir verbs.

The Present Perfect To form the present perfect tense, we combine this past participle with the present tense of the verb haber.

The Present Perfect We generally use the Spanish present perfect in the same way we use its English equivalent.

The Present Perfect I have rented You have rented He, She It has rented We have rented You all have rented They have rented

The Present Perfect he alquilado has alquilado ha alquilado hemos alquilado habéis alquilado han alquilado

The Present Perfect I have chosen You have chosen He, She It has chosen We have chosen You all have chosen They have chosen

The Present Perfect he escogido has escogido ha escogido hemos escogido habéis escogido han escogido

The Present Perfect I have decided You have decided He, She It has decided We have decided You all have decided They have decided

The Present Perfect he decidido has decidido ha decidido hemos decidido habéis decidido han decidido

The Present Perfect No he reparado la bicicleta todavía. I haven’t repaired the bicycle yet.

The Present Perfect ¿Qué trabajos has tenido? What jobs have you had?

The Present Perfect Notice that when the past participle is used with forms of haber, the final -o never changes.

The Present Perfect Ricardo ha grabado su película favorita. Sus hermanos han grabado una telenovela.

The Present Perfect Certain verbs that have a double vowel in the infinitive form (except those with the double vowel ui ) require an accent mark on the i in the past participle.

The Present Perfect Caer Leer Oír Creer Traer Reír caído leído oído creído traído reído

The Present Perfect Notice that we place no and other negative words, object pronouns, and reflexive pronouns directly in front of the form of the verb haber.

The Present Perfect Has alquilado esa película alguna vez? No, no la he alquilado nunca.

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:

As you saw, the present perfect tense has a set of helping verbs that come from “haber”: hehemos hashabéis hahan The same is true of the past perfect. The helping verbs for the past perfect are the imperfect form of “haber”: había habladohabíamos hablado habías habladohabíais hablado había habladohabían hablado

Participles Some verbs have irregular past participles.

Here is a list of irregular participles volvervuelto poner puesto abrir abierto cubrircubierto escribirescrito vervisto morirmuerto decirdicho hacerhecho romperroto

Here is a song to help remember… AbiertoPuesto DichoEscrito HechoRoto Visto Vuelto Cubierto