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: hablarhabladonadarnadado pensarpensadoalmorzaralmorzado llegarllegadoestarestado Drop the –er or –ir and add –ido: comercomidopoderpodido leerleídoquererquerido asistirasistidovenirvenido

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.here

There are, of course, irregular past participles in Spanish as there are in English. callhave called jumphave jumped lookhave looked eathave eated????have eaten bringhave bringed????have brought

You have to memorize the irregular past participles in Spanish just as you do in English. volvervuelto (NOT volvido) ponerpuesto (NOT ponido) abrirabierto etc. cubrircubierto escribirescrito vervisto morirmuerto decirdicho hacerhecho romperroto

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 habladohemos hablado has habladohabéis hablado ha habladohan hablado Use these verb forms with all your past participles: he comido, has querido, ha vuelto, hemos trabajado, etc.

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 perfecthe has eaten past perfect he had eaten future perfecthe will have eaten conditional perfecthe would have eaten

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

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 thats another lesson.

Present Perfect and Pluperfect