Spanish/Lesson 9

Grammar - Past Participle (el participio)
Spanish uses the past participle primarily for present perfect, past perfect, and other similar times. For -ar verbs form the past participle by adding -ado to the stem. For -er and -ir verbs add -ido:

If the stem of an -er or -ir verb ends in one of the vowels -a, -e, or -o, the i of -ido gets an accent mark:

There are a few verbs with an irregular past participle:

As in English, the past participle can also be used as an adjective for a noun. In that case the ending has to match gender and number of the noun. Example:

Finally, there are a few verbs with both a regular and an irregular past participle. In this case, the irregular past participle is used as an adjective, while the regular form is used for the verb tenses.

Grammar - Present Perfect (el pretérito perfecto)
The Spanish present perfect is formed by conjugating the auxiliary verb haber (= to have) and adding the past participle of the verb.

Here are a few examples of the Spanish Present perfect. Note that in Spanish the auxiliary verb haber and the past participle are never separated:

Grammar - Pluperfect (el pretérito pluscuamperfecto)
The Spanish pluperfect is formed by conjugating imperfect of haber (= to have) and adding the past participle of the verb.

Here are a few examples of the Spanish pluperfect. It is used to refer to an event that happened before another event in the past. As in the present perfect, the auxiliary verb haber and the past participle are never separated: