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The perfect tense: verbs with irregular past participles
As in English and French and various other languages,
Spanish verbs have irregular past participles.
For example, the English verb eat has the past participle (I have) eaten,
not ...eated; similar, fight has fought.
In Spanish, relatively few verbs actually have irregular past participles. Even various verbs with irregular yo forms in the present tense (e.g. salir > salgo) actually have completely regular past participles (salido, tenido, cabido, sabido etc). That said, the following verbs (and verbs based on them) do have irregular past participles:
| Verb | Past participle | Example |
|---|---|---|
| abrir open | abierto | han abierto la tienda they've opened the shop |
| cubrir to cover | cubierto | ha cubierto su cara he's covered his face she's covered her face |
| decir to say | dicho | has dicho que... you've said that... |
| escribir to write | escrito | ha escrito una carta he/she's written a letter |
| hacer to do, make | hecho | ¿qué has hecho? what have you done? he hecho un café I've made a coffee |
| ir to go | ido | nunca he ido a Paris I've never been to Paris |
| morir to die | muerto | ha muerto he/she has died |
| poner to put (on) | puesto | ¿dónde he puesto mis llaves? where have I put my keys? |
| romper to break | roto | he roto un vaso I've broken a glass |
| ver to see | visto | ¿has visto a mi hermano? have you seen my brother? |
| volver to turn; to return | vuelto | ha vuelto a su país he's returned to his country she's returned to her country |
Also, the following are not really irregular, but because their stem ends in a vowel (le- etc), an accent is added to -ído to mark the i as a separate vowel:
| Verb | Past participle | Example |
|---|---|---|
| leer to read | leído | he leído la noticia I've read the news |
| traer to bring | traído | he traído leche I've brought some milk |
Practise irregular perfect tense forms
On the next page, you can practise the perfect tense using these irregular past participles.
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