The Perfect tense

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The PERFECT tense is used to talk about something you have done.  To form you use the following structure:

HABER + past participle

The parts of HABER in the present are:

                        he / has / ha / hemos / habéis / han

The past participle is formed by adding -ado to the stem of ar verbs, and by adding -ido to the stem of er and ir verbs. Both parts are then put together.

Por ejemplo:

tomar  comer  vivir he tomado has tomado ha tomado hemos tomado habéis tomado han tomado he comido has comido ha comido hemos comido habéis comido han comido he vivido has vivido ha vivido hemos vivido habéis vivido han vivido

2. The Spanish perfect is used just as the English and is translated as ‘I have…’, ‘you have…’, ‘he has…’ etc.

Han llegado temprano.
They have arrived early.

Note - The past participle is invariable – it doesn’t change in spelling, only the corresponding part of HABER changes.

Note - The auxiliary HABER is never separated from the past participle.

Note – If the sentence is in the negative form, the NO goes before both parts of the perfect tense.