"En España he visitado las ciudades de Barcelona, Málaga y Córdoba".
I want to say the following sentence in Spanish, "In Spain I have visited the cities of Barcelona, Málaga and Cordoba. This I have translated to "En España he visitado las ciudades de Barcelona, Málaga y Córdoba". But I'm not sure this is correct because I have used the present perfect and my understanding is you use this tense for the recent past only but I did not visit these cities recently. Should I use the preterite "En España visité las ciudades de Barcelona, Málaga y Córdoba", in this case?
Thanks, Neil
4 Answers
clipped from online article:
You use the present perfect verb tense in Spanish to express or describe actions that have happened recently and/ or actions that still hold true in the present.
I have never visited Spain.
Nunca he visitado a España.
For me this extends almost 60 years into the past, so it doesn't only deal with the recent past.
The preterite perfects ends the action in the past and makes no connection to the present or future. The present perfect ends the action in the past but connects it to the recent past or present.
You could use the present perfect in your case as it is still a true statement in the present.
Remember, however,:
The present perfect is NOT used to indicate an action still in progress. To express an ongoing action which began in the past, the present tense is used:
I have never visited Spain in my life, but I am doing so now or next week.
The "I have never been in my life" part is true right up to the present moment (recent past), but the present or future may be making it untrue.
It all depends on how you want to say it. They'll both give the same general idea and seeing as how you asked how to translate 'I have visited...' this would seem to say that your mind is thinking in the present perfect way of thinking. So..I'd say just go for the present perfect, though you could use the preterit as well.
-Charlius-
Nunca he visitado --- España.
No article with towns or countries.
English speaking natives have the tendency to think that our language is as strict in the use of tenses as English. Well, it is not.
The use of past simple or present perfect is mostly regional in Spain. In the north of Spain, the present perfect is almost never used at all, always past simple,.
¿Has comido ya? becomes in Galicia: ¿Comiste?
Sounds even funny to the rest of Spaniards but it is a fact that it is used that way. Here in Madrid, we use the present perfect for almost everything.
In the given sentence, present perfect is the best option, in my opinion, however any gallego would tell you the past simple, of course.
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