6 Curso – Past Participles (with Ser)

The Past Participles in Spanish can be used in a variety of ways.

First we saw them used in the Present Perfect Tense with the verb Haber

He
Has                                                                                          -ar = -ado          (hablar = hablado)
Ha                                  +       Past Particple                      -er = -ido           (comer = comido)
Hemos                                                                                    -ir = -ido            (vivir = vivido)
Habéis
Han

There are of course a list of irregulars as well we you can find in De Acuerdo P.67. You can revise the Present Perfect by clicking here.

However we can also use the Past Participles with Ser to construct the Passive Voice. This is normally seen in journalistic articles so it’s important to be able to recognise it even if you don’t use it. Click here for a quick rundown on this, make sure you practice using the quizzes on the left hand side of the page.

Essentially we conjugate Ser in whatever tense we require and then follow it with the past participle of the action being ‘done’ for example:

Este libro fue esrcrito por Cervantes.

 

 

 

6 Curso – The Impersonal and Passive Voice in Spanish

You can find a good review of this topic in De Acuerdo (Unit 10 p 120 – 123). However there are some other explanations attached below along with some practice exercises.

First up is the Impersonal ‘Se’, used when the subject of verb is unknown. Good for general statements, for example:

Se habla español en perú.
Se debe estudiar mucho.
¿Cómo se dice ´book´ en español? 

Click here to review and practice.

 

We also have the Passive ´Se´ used for when the subject of the verb and the object of the verb are the same. For example:

Se come la tarta  – the cake was eaten.

By who? We don´t know, we don´t need to know. This is a Passive sentence. Click here to review Active v Passive.

Click here to review and practice.

As differentiating between the two can be quite difficult you can practice the Impersonal Se v Passive Se by clicking here.

There is also the case of the Accidental Se. We use this for unplanned events. It basically works the same as Gustar only with a Se added to the start of the sentence.

You can click here to practice but only move onto this when you are comfortable with the Impersonal and Passive Se.