Past participles in Spanish, how to form its
In English, the past participle of regular verbs is formed by adding -ed to the infinitive: play → played; watch → watched; dance → danced. But many English past participles are irregular, but you are so used to them that you don’t notice, for instance, run → run; eat → eaten; drink → drunk, etc. The same is going to be in Spanish, read the lesson carefully, pay attention to the examples and, when you find yourself ready, practice with our activities. Once you have seen the whole lesson and you feel confident about how to form the participles, learn more about how to use them.
First, let see the regulars
Most Spanish past participles are regular, you just have to follow some patterns:
1. Most verbs ending in -ar change the -ar in the infinitive to -ado.
hablar → hablado (spoken) | ganar → ganado (earned, won) |
ocupar → ocupado (occupied) | enviar → enviado (sent) |
2. Usually, verbs ending in -er or -ir change their endings to -ido.
comer → comido (eaten) | vivir → vivido (lived) |
vender → vendido (sold) | dormir → dormido (slept) |
3. -Er and -ir verbs such as caer, leer, and oír, whose stems end in a vowel, add an accent mark over the “I” ending in -ído:
caer → caído (fallen) | oír → oído (heard) |
creer → creído (believed) | poseer → poseído (possessed) |
leer → leído (read) | traer → traído (brought) |
Here you have the irregulars
Some Spanish past participles are irregulars. Although they can seem to you be quite a lot, they are easy to learn, as they are organized in a few groups with the same patterns. Also, notice that most of them finish in -to.
Forming past participles exercises
I hope you have found this lesson useful, now it is time to practice what you have learned finding 12 past participles in this word search. Remember to get in touch with your tutor if you have any question. Don’t you have any Spanish tutor yet?
We also have a crossword to practice more with the irregulars. Please, leave us a message if you want us to prepare more activities about this topic.