Please explain perfecto presente and is that the same as preterito?

Question

I am new to Spanish and am having difficulty gettiung this verb tense for Preterito presente/ presente perfecto correct. Please help! Thank you : )

Answer 1

Overview

The preterit tense (el pretérito) is one of several past tenses in Spanish and it is used to describe actions completed at one point in the past or that lasted a specific amount of time in the past and are now completed. The preterit is not used to describe habitual or continuous actions in the past with no specific ending or beginning.

Ayer, vi Eduardo. = Yesterday I saw Edward. (an action that took place in the past and is now completed.)

Here is a link to a SpanishDict Reference article on the Preterit tense. link text

Overview

The present perfect (el pretérito perfecto) is a combination of the past participle and the present indicative of the verb haber. The present perfect describes an action that happened in the past and continues or repeats into the present or an action that happened in the recent past. There are three other perfect tenses in the indicative: past perfect, future perfect, and conditional perfect.

Present Perfect

The present perfect describes what a person "has" done, but notice that tener is not used even though it means "to have." It is formed by combining haber (conjugated to the subject of the sentence) and the past participle.

Present Perfect Formula

present indicative haber + past participle

•Yo he visto las montañas de Perú. (I have seen the mountains of Perú.)

Here is a link to a SpanishDict Reference article on the present perfect/el pretérito perfecto.link text

I hope that this helps!

And, I can understand how you would be confused over the names of the two tenses.

Welcome to the forum!

very good - El_Hitch, Jun 23, 2010

Answer 2

I'm not sure whether you are trying to say in English the Present Perfect or the Preterite past. The Preterite past has several titles:

pretérito perfecto simple

pretérito indefinido

pretérito (bad title, but you will see it used.)

Pretérito simple means past and is used in many Spanish tense titles, so it's best not to refer to the Preterite past as simply pretérito.

Realize that the subjunctive mood also has a tense that is sometimes labeled as pretérito, but more commonly pretérito imperfecto to make the distinction between indicative and subjunctive moods.

The Present Perfect tense also has several titles. The ones that I prefer are:

pretérito perfecto compuesto

or

antepresente

The first term translate literally to compound past perfect so English/Spanish speakers often confuse the Past Perfect and Present Perfect tense titles. [The Past Perfect is the pluscuamperfecto (Pluperfect) and the pretérito anterior.]

People that have learned the titles preterite and copreterite (pretérito imperfecto) to refer to Spanish's two simple past tenses usually use the term pretérito by itself.

Answer 3

Hi there Loadsocurl,

The short answer is that the Preterit and the Present Perfect are two different tenses.

I have always found that the easiest way to think of the Present Perfect is an action that started in the past but that could still be continuing to this moment.

For instance, "I have eaten some tortilla" / "He comido tortilla". This is something that happened in the past but I could still have some more in a few minutes. It implies a past that does not have a definite ending.

The Preterit is a very different beast. It is used in Spanish when the past action had a definite beginning and definite end. Using the phrase above, it might be "I ate tortilla at the restaurant" / "Comé tortilla en el restaurante". There is no implication at all that I am still eating, or even still in the restaurant. It was an action that had a very clear end.

The Present Perfect is a "Compound Tense" unlike the Preterit which is a "Simple Tense". This means that the PP, or any compound tense, is formed by the use of an auxiliary verb, "haber" - to have, plus the past participle of the verb that you are using, in this case "comer". As you want the Present Perfect, you will need to use the Present Tense of "Haber" - "he, has, ha, hemos, habéis or han" plus the Past Participle.

To form the Past Participle, knock the -ar, -er or -ir off the verb and add -ado to -ar verbs or -ido to -er and - ir remaining stems.

The Preterit is formed by adding the following endings to the stem of -ar verbs: -é, -aste, -amos, -asteís, -aron and by adding the following endings to -er and -ir verbs: -í, -iste, -ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron.

These tenses are covered in the Learn Spanish section of this website. You may find lessons 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 and 3.2 of particular interest. Each lesson takes just 10-15 minutes, so it's worth doing. See also the Preterit and Present Perfect sections in the Spanish Verbs section of the Reference Section, that you will find under the "More" tab.

Stick with it. It may be a little confusing just now but very soon you'll know straight off which tense you need. Good luck.