The Present Perfect, ‘perfecto de indicativo’ or ‘pretérito perfecto’ . To ‘have done’ something

It’s obviously very useful to be able to say ‘I have…………….done something’. The construction in Spanish is much the same as it is in English – we use the verb ‘to have’ followed by the part of the verb known as the ‘past participle’.

The only real difference is that in Spanish there is a separate verb ‘to have’ specifically for this purpose – HABER.

This tense is a past tense known as ‘perfecto de indicativo’ or ‘pretérito perfecto’, is a compound tense, and can be learned in 3 simple steps!

STEP 1

First you need to learn the parts of the verb ‘haber’ that we need for this tense.

N.B. it is important to remember that this verb ‘haber’, should not be confused with the verb ‘tener’ which means ‘to have’ in the sense ‘I have got, you have got, etc.

STEP 2

The ‘past participle’ is formed very simply as shown below, for regular verbs

Obviously there are some irregular verbs, but this rule holds true for all the regular ones.

STEP 3

Then all you have to do is combine the two:

He hablado = I have spoken

Oscar no ha venido a colegio hoy = Oscar hasn’t come to

school today

Hemos gastado todo nuestro dinero = We have spent all our money

¿Has montado alguna vez una bici tándem? = Have you ever ridden a tandem bike?

Here are a few irregular past participles