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Using preterito perfecto as indefinido? | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4759 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 9 of 10 12 February 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
You missunderstood me. My explanation was only dealing with strict temporal usage, in other words, when to use one tense or the other for a perfective action. Your examples are not purely perfective. They are indicating actions that still have an influence on the present environment, which is in fact the main subtlety that the so-called Present Perfect ("he trabajado") allows to convey. I thought it was clear the OP was only asking about a completed single past event and how to use this tense or the indefinido. In Spain as you know, you can use the Present perfect for a completed past event that NO LONGER has an influence in the present, when it was performed in a very recent past (thus my 24 hour comment): - He escrito la carta. (there is no influence of this action now, it's a completed fact). After a day or so, the indefinido must always be used to express not only finality but distance from the action to the time of speaking: - Escribí la carta (hace tres dias). Saludos. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4478 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 10 of 10 15 February 2012 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In Peninsular Spanish it is perfectly normal to use both tenses with:
HOY, YA, ESTE... Hoy me compré unas camisetas ~ Hoy me he comprado unas camisetas. Ya lo hice ~ Lo he hecho ya Este mes trabajé mucho ~ Este mes he trabajado mucho. They are interchangeable. If you pay attention to Spanish literature and newspapers (as well as speech) you will see both tenses are used with these words. On the other hand, only AÚN NO/TODAVÍA NO is an obligatory trigger of the present perfect: No ha llegado todavía. HACE and ANTES DE are triggers of the past simple, in 99% of cases, with no difference between temporal nearness/distance observed: Hoy salí de la casa justamente antes de que comenzara a llover. Lo siento pero su tren partió hace diez minutos. Los abuelos llegaron hace tres horas y están aquí en la sala con nosotros. The only 2 situations in which the present perfect is obligatory in Peninsular Spanish: 1. AÚN NO, TODAVÍA NO 2. immediate action: ¿Qué has dicho? = ¿Qué acabas de decir? Overall, if you take a look at these sentences, they all mean the same even though a different tense is used: 1. Acaba de salir. 2. Ha salido. 3. Salió hace un rato/minuto. This is all for Peninsular Spanish I'm focusing on Argentine Spanish, which is a lot easier, the present perfect is used only in subjunctive, regardless of adverbials, like in Portuguese: ''Espero que me hayas comprado algo hoy/ayer/hace diez días.'' Edited by Medulin on 15 February 2012 at 7:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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