This tense is called in Spanish “pretérito perfecto compuesto”. I explained all about the forms and how to use them in the two videos below, but I will clarify a few aspects that will be very useful for you to understand this and other tenses. Let’s start with the name. In grammar, when we say “perfect” it means that an action was completed, and this is valid for any language, not only Spanish. “Compuesto”, which means “compound”, indicates that you have two verbal forms: the auxiliary verb (which in Spanish is “haber”) plus the main verb (which in this case is “caminar”), as in “yo he caminado”, “I have walked”.
Once that you have understood this, you will see that we also have another tense called “pretérito perfecto simple”, because it is also a perfect tense (it refers to an action that was completed), but it is made up of only one verbal form, hence the name “simple”. This is the equivalent to the Simple Past, as in “yo caminé”, “I walked”.
And last but not least, we have the “pretérito imperfecto”, which is called “imperfect” because we do not specify if the action was or wasn’t completed, as in “yo caminaba”, which could be translated as “I was walking” or “I used to walk”.
This explanation is important, because it will help you to decide when to use one or the other of these three past tenses. Now, watch the videos. In the first one, you will see how to form the tense, and in the second one, I talk about holidays using it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luwe9K3EOJE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKITuWY7GR0
There are also two adverbs that are frequently used with this tense, “ya” (already) and “todavía” (yet). I will explain more about “ya” in a blog about adverbs, but for now, consider only this meaning. Take a look:
María, ¿has leído el libro? Sí, ya lo he leído.
Maria, have you read the book? Yes, I have already read it.
María, ¿has leído el libro? No, todavía no lo he leído.
Maria, have you read the book? No, I haven’t read it yet.
