Forming Past Participles In Spanish

In linguistics, a participle is defined as “a derivative of a non-finite verb.”  What that means in plain English is that they are usually used in compound tenses to describe something that is either currently happening or happened in the past.  A perfect example of a past participle in English is a word we just used:  happened.  It’s not happening now, it “happened” in the past.  In English, the -ed ending is usually used to mark a past participle.

Forming The Past Participle In Spanish

Spanish has a similarly-simple system for marking past participles:

• For -ar verbs you drop the -ar and add -ado to the end of the word.  Thus, the past participle of pasar – “to happen,” is pasado – “happened”.
• For -er and -ir verbs you drop the -er or -ir and add -ido to the end of the word.  Thus, the past participle of comer – “to eat” is comido – “ate” and the past participle of vivir – “to live” is vivido – “lived”

Common Verbs With Irregular Past Participles

While most verbs adhere to the rules outlined above, some very common ones don’t.  Here are a few you’ll probably run into.

• Abrir (to open) -> abierto
• Decir (to say) -> dicho
• Hacer (to do) -> hecho
• Poner (to put) -> puesto
• Ver (to see) -> visto
• Volver (to return) -> vuelto