Forming The Present Participle In Spanish

The rules for forming the present participle are just as simple as those for forming the past participle.

• For -ar verbs you drop the -ar and add -ando to the end of the word.  Thus, the present participle of pasar – “to happen,” is pasando – “happening”.
• For -er and -ir verbs you drop the -er or -ir and add -iendo to the end of the word.  Thus, the present participle of comer – “to eat” is comiendo – “eating” and the past participle of vivir – “to live” is viviendo – “living”

Common Verbs With Irregular Present Participles

Just as with the past participle, there are some common Spanish verbs with an irregular present participle.  Some of these are an attempt to avoid an awkward spelling.

• Leer (to read) -> leyendo
• Ir (to go) -> yendo

Most other verbs with an irregular present participle still take the -ando and -iendo endings like regular verbs, but the stem is changed instead.

• Venir (to come) -> viniendo
• Decir (to say) -> diciendo
• Incluir (to include) -> incluyendo
• Dormir (to sleep) -> durmiendo

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

“Hay un auto.”

and

“Hay does autos.”

are both correct.

The same form is also used when asking questions.  In the case of a question, the question ¿Hay? means both “Is there?” and “Are there?”  Just as above, the sentences

“¿Hay un auto?”

and

“¿Hay dos autos?”

are both correct, translated as “Is there a car?” and “Are there two cars?” respectively.

“John ate the cake.”

is an active sentence. John, the subject of the sentence, is also the one doing the eating. The following sentence, however, is a passive way to say the same thing

“The cake was eaten by John.”

In this example, the subject (the cake) is not the entity committing the action. John is eating the cake and not vice versa. This is the passive voice.

The Passive In Spanish

The passive voice in Spanish works pretty much the same way as in English. For instance,

“John comió la torta.”

and

“La torta fue comido por John.”

are word-for-word translations of their equivalents above. Since it works the same as in English, this particular way of writing the passive is easy to understand; however, there is another way to use the passive in Spanish which has no English equivalent.

The Reflexive Substitute For The Passive

When there is no explicit source of the action, the reflexive substitute for the passive is often used. This can usually be thought of along the lines of the impersonal “they” in English. For example

“They say this restaurant is very expensive.”

Who says that? “They” do, which is to say nobody in particular. It’s just the general consensus. In Spanish, you would use the reflexive pronoun “se” to convey the same meaning.

“Se dice que este restaurante es muy caro.”

What the above sentence literally means is

“It is said that this restaurant is very expensive”

The impersonal “they” is translated using the reflexive substitute for the passive, “se dice” or “it is said.” The “they” doesn’t refer to any one person or group in particular, just a general social consensus.

Uses Of The Preterite

The main thing to keep in mind is that the preterite is used for one-time actions.  For instance, to say you walked to the park on saturday you would use the preterite:

Caminé por la calle el sabado pasado

Since the walking happened at a specific point in time, last saturday, you’d use the preterite.  However, actions that take place against a continuous backdrop of another action also take the preterite.  If you were walking to the park when you saw a dog, the verb “to walk” would take the imperfect tense while the verb “to see” would take the preterite.  That is because the focus of the sentence is on seeing the dog.  The walking is just background information.

Caminaba por la calle cuando ví un perro.

Uses Of The Imperfect

The imperfect tense usually signifies ongoing or background action.  Taking the example above, if you had used the imperfect tense instead of the preterite you would have been implying that you walked through the park regularly.  The sentence

Caminaba por la calle

indicates continuous action.  That is, it was not an isolated event.  Perhaps you walk down the street every morning on your way to work.  By contrast,

Caminé por la calle

implies this was a one-time action.  Perhaps you were forced to walk down the street just this once because your car had a flat tire.  Use of the imperfect implies repetition.

The imperfect tense is also used to describe background actions taking place in contrast to the main event.  In the example above,

Caminaba por la calle cuando ví un perro.

the verb “to walk” takes the imperfect tense, because the act of walking is merely a background action that happened to be going on when a discrete event, seeing the dog, occurred.  It’s what you were doing when you saw the dog.

This short lesson is a gross over-simplification, of course, but these simple rules will get you through 90% of your Spanish conversations.  For more on the preterite vs imperfect, check out my old Spanish verbs tutorial.