4. Spanish Adjectives: Past Participles

This article is Part 4 of 6 in the Spanish Adjectives series.

1. Intro to Spanish Adjectives: Agreement & Placement
2. Formation and Placement
3. Comparisons and Superlatives
4. Past Participles
5. Todo
6. Indefinite Adjective

Using Past Participles as Adjectives

I remember feeling confused the first time I saw a Spanish sentence like “La cena está preparada”. I thought, “Why did preparar turn into preparada?” Over time, I realized that these are past participles used as adjectives, and they have to agree in number and gender with the noun they describe.

When we say something like “Las verduras están cocidas,” we’re using a past participle (cocidas) as an adjective. In English, this idea often looks like adjectives ending in -ed (like cooked or confused). But in Spanish, it depends on the verb ending.

Regular Past Participles

For regular verbs ending in -ar, you use -ado. For verbs ending in -er or -ir, you use -ido. Here’s a quick table:

I find this table handy when I’m trying to form past participles. When using these forms as adjectives, watch out for gender and number agreements:

• Masculine Singular: preparado, cocido, quemado
• Feminine Singular: preparada, cocida, quemada
• Masculine Plural: preparados, cocidos, quemados
• Feminine Plural: preparadas, cocidas, quemadas

For example:

• La cena está preparada.
• Los vegetales están cocidos.

Irregular Past Participles

Not all verbs behave nicely. Some are irregular. Here are a few I had to memorize:

• escribir → escrito
• hacer → hecho
• decir → dicho
• abrir → abierto

When these are adjectives, they still need to agree with the noun:

• La carta está escrita.
• Los informes están hechos.
• La puerta está abierta.

Everyday Examples

Sometimes, I hear sentences like:

• Mi familia está sentada a la mesa. (My family is seated at the table.)
• Él llegó todo quemado del sol. (He arrived totally burnt from the sun.)

Notice how sentada matches la familia in gender and number when we treat la familia as a single entity. If we think of each member individually, we might say sentados.

Practice Exercises

Try these exercises on your own. Then check the answers below.

1. Fill in the blank with the correct form of the past participle:
   • Yo preparé la salsa. Ahora la salsa está ________ (preparar).
   • Las ventanas están ________ (cerrar) durante la noche.
   • Ellos llegaron ________ (cansar) de la caminata.
2. Choose the correct adjective form of the participle in parentheses:
   • Las fotos ________ (romper) están en la basura. (rotas/rotos/rotar)
   • Tenemos la cena ________ (hacer). (hecha/hecho/hacer)
3. Write the correct form of the irregular past participle in parentheses:
   • La puerta está ________ (abrir).
   • Los libros están ________ (escribir) en español.

AI Prompt for Additional Practice

1. Grammar Instructor Prompt
   “Adopt a grammar instructor role. My learning objective is to learn how to form Spanish past participles. Please break down the endings for -ar, -er, and -ir verbs, then explain the most common irregular forms and how they become adjectives.” [Open in ChatGPT]
2. Practice Coach Prompt
   “Adopt a practice coach role. My learning objective is to master gender and number agreement for past participles used as adjectives. Provide a few simple exercises with feedback that will help me understand how to make these participles match the nouns they describe.” [Open in ChatGPT]
3. Conversation Guide Prompt
   “Adopt a conversation guide role. My learning objective is to use Spanish past participles in everyday contexts. Offer practical examples, short dialogues, or sentences that show how these adjectives appear in daily life. Please focus on clarity and cultural relevance.” [Open in ChatGPT]

Huzzah! Let's move on to the next lesson: Todo!

Attribution
Adapted from Past Participles as Adjectives under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.