1. The Perfect Tense
Year 12

2. 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.

3. Using the perfect tense

4. - 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

5. 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.

6. Forming the Past Participle

7. 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)

8. 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

9. 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.

10. Verbs with irregular past participles

11. 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)

12. 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.

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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.