Do you struggle with verb tenses?
Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo
This is one of the most common tenses used in Spanish. It is a typical European tense, and as a curiosity, both American English and American Spanish avoid it. In America people prefer simple tenses, but here in the old Europe, we still use compound tenses to express ourselves.
The Pretérito Compuesto uses the verb HABER as an auxiliary verb. The auxiliary will be conjugated in Presente de Indicativo, while the main verb will be in the Past Participle form.
Presente de Ind. HABER + Participio = Pretérito Perf. Compuesto Ind.
HABER PARTICIPIO
He Cantar: Cantado
Has
Ha Beber: Bebido
Hemos Vivir: Vivido
Habéis
Han
Participle refers to the completed action of the verb. The endings are related to each group
(-AR: -ado; -ER: -ido; -IR: -ido)
However, Spanish is full of irregular participles, here are some examples:
Hacer: Hecho; Ver: Visto; Decir: Dicho...
Compound tenses are very easily formed as they tend to change less than other tenses.
Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo is half way between the Past and the Present. We use this tense to refer to past actions with a present result.
Present result according to the action:
He limpiado mis zapatos
(I have cleaned my shoes)
I did the action in the past, and I can only say it if the shoes are still clean now (a present result)
Hemos cocinado un pastel de chocolate
(We’ve cooked a chocolate cake)
We can only say it if we still have some more cake left to offer (a present result, but not when somebody has eaten it all!
Present result according to the time:
He visto la televisión hoy.
(I’ve watched telly today)
The time expressed, today, is not finished yet, and that’s make it to the present.
Este año hemos visitado a los abuelos.
(We’ve visited our grandparents this year)
This year is still going on so we can only use Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo.
He escalado en Everest.
(I have climbed the Everest)
Achievements in life are always expressed in this tense as if you’re speaking, your lifetime hasn’t finished yet.
In many other situations, the action or the time are finished. That means somebody has already eaten the cake or that the time is finished (yesterday). In those situations we’d use the Pretérito Perfecto Simple de Indicativo (also known as Pretérito Indefinido) and we will study that tense in our next article about tenses.
This is a Lingua–Franca article
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