Present Perfect

hablar  to speak
yo he hablado nosotros/as hemos hablado
tú has hablado  
él/ella/usted ha hablado ellos/as/ustedes han hablado

The present perfect (pretérito perfecto or presente perfecto) is very similar in form and use to the English present perfect .

Form

The present perfect is a compound tense made of 2 words that cannot be separated:

  1. The present indicative of the auxiliar verb haber
  2. The past participle (-ado/-ido form) of the main verb
Creo que las personas que han influido en mi vida, y que han hecho gran impacto no necesariamente son maestros. Son los maestros de casa, mis padres, que siempre han estado motivándome, han estado apoyándome en todas las decisiones que tomo.
I think that the people that have influenced my life and that have had a big impact are not necessarily teachers. They are the teachers at home, my parents, who have always been motivating me, have been supporting me in all the decisions I make. Raúl, ese niño es el que nos ha dado más scares.
Raúl, that kid is the one that has given us more scares.

Uses

The present perfect is used when

  1. talking about a past action that happened in a time period close to the speaker/writer’s present
  2. in the sentence there is a time expression that refers to an ongoing or not completed time period

Some time expressions that usually are accompanied by the present perfect are: hoy, today, esta mañana, this morning, esta semana, this week, este año, this year, este mes, this month, ya, already, todavía, yet, alguna vez, some time, etc. These time expressions can also be used with the preterit.

¿Y alguna vez te ha dado vergüenza porque vives en los Estados Unidos?
Have you ever been embarrassed because you live in the United States?
Imperfect > >
< < Preterit