Perfect Tenses

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

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 cubiertoescribir escritover vistomorir muertodecir dichohacer hechoromper roto

Helping VerbNow 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.

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 eatenpast perfect he had eatenfuture perfect he will have eatenconditional perfect he would have eaten

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.

The FUTURE PERFECT TENSE is the past of the future, in a manner of speaking. It shows something that will be complete at some point in the future.

By the year 2050 we will have found a way to make a car run on water.

2050 is the future. Some time before then, a car running on water will be a reality. In 2050, our future, that invention will be a past (completed) act.

Following are the future perfect forms of “haber”:

habré habremos

habrás habréis

habrá habrán

Put these helping verbs with a past participle

to form the future perfect:

future perfect

↓ ↓

habré hablado – I will have spoken

The conditional perfect is a little trickier. It refers to a point in the past when something would have been completed. There’s always an implied “if clause.”

I would have eaten all the cake (if I could have).

Although the time isn’t specified, it is always some point in the past.

Following are the conditional perfect forms of “haber”:

habría habríamos

habrías habríais

habría habrían

Put these helping verbs with a past participle

to form the future perfect:

conditional perfect

↓ ↓

habría hablado – I would have spoken