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3.3: Past Participles

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Participio pasado

Past participles can be used as adjectives or verbs, but they always need an auxiliary verb. The auxiliary verb must be conjugated to the subject of the sentence and the past participle will stay in the same form; they do not conjugate. 

Changing a verb into its past participle form is easy, just change ending "-ar" to "-ado" and endings "-er" and "-ir" to "-ido". In English, regular past participles end in "-ed", such as "closed". However, there are irregular forms in both Spanish and English.

Participos pasados regulares

Regular Past Participles in Spanish
Infinitivo Participio pasado Inglés
contaminar contaminado polluted
proteger protegido protected
destruir destruido destroyed

Práctica 1

Participios pasados irregulares

There are some verbs with irregular past participles and they do not end in "-ado" or "-ido".

Irregular Past Participles in Spanish
Infinitivo Participio pasado Inglés
abrir abierto opened
cubrir cubierto covered
descomponer descompuesto broken; not working
describir descrito described
escribir escrito written
hacer hecho done; made
morir muerto dead
poner puesto put
romper roto broken; torn; ripped
resolver resuelto solved
ver visto seen
volver vuelto returned

Verbs with an "-a", "-e", or "-o" as the last letter of the stem, after the infinitive ending is dropped, need an added accent mark on their past participle form, but only if the original verb ends in "-er" or "-ir". The accent mark must be placed on the "i" of "-ído".

Past Participles with Accent Marks
Infinitivo Participio pasado Inglés
cre-er creído believed
o-ír oído heard
tra-er traído brought

Participio pasado como adjetivo

Previously, you have used past participles as adjectives. For example, "aburrido" is a past participle that derives from the verb "aburrir". When past participles are used as adjectives, the ending "o" must change to agree with the noun they describe. If "aburrido" is used to describe a female, you would use the feminine form "aburrida"; if it's plural, an "s" at the end would be added, "aburridos". 

When using past participles as adjectives, most of the time the auxiliary verb used will be "estar".

Ejemplos

  • El supermercado está cerrado. (The supermarket is closed.)
  • La mesa está puesta. Empecemos a comer. (The table is set. Let's start eating.)
  • Mis padres están enojados. (My parents are angry.)
  • Tu lápiz está roto. (Your pencil is broken.)
  • Marlene y Lupita están cansadas. (Marlene and Lupita are tired.)
  • Yo estoy aburrida. (I am bored.)

Práctica 2


3.3: Past Participles is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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