Lesson 62. Today I've…: he trabajado

He + participle

The pretérito perfecto has two parts: a form of haber and a participle, much like English have + worked:

	haber
yo	he
tú	has
él, ella, usted	ha
nosotros	hemos
vosotros	habéis
ellos, ustedes	han

Regular participles: -ar → -ado, -er / -ir → -ido:

• trabajar → trabajado; estudiar → estudiado;
• comer → comido; recibir → recibido.

The participle doesn’t change for gender or number: trabajado stays the same in he trabajado (“I’ve worked”) and hemos trabajado (“we’ve worked”). The form of haber changes with the subject.

In our examples, haber and the participle stay together. No and object pronouns go before haber: No he recibido el paquete. Las he encontrado.

When to use it

In much of Spain it’s common for completed actions connected with the present, often with hoy, esta semana or este año: Hoy he trabajado mucho. You can also use it to talk about this morning or afternoon: Esta mañana he perdido las llaves — “I lost my keys this morning.” A time expression alone doesn’t determine the tense, and English may use the simple past here.

In Latin America another past tense is often used in these situations; you’ll meet it from lesson 67.

Irregular participles (hecho, visto…) come in lesson 63.

Words in this lesson

Aprobar means “to pass an exam,” suspender “to fail.” Aprobar changes its vowel in the present: apruebo.