Forming the present perfect progressive tense in Spanish with estar + gerund (El Pretérito Perfecto Progresivo)

Every Spanish past tense has a continuous (progressive) form to express an action which is continuing or ongoing in the past.

The progressive tense of the El Pretérito Perfecto is formed following this pattern for most regular verbs:

It works the same way as the English present perfect progressive "have been doing". But remember it is "estar" and not "ser".

And what is a gerund in Spanish?

Here is a reminder of what a gerund is in Spanish and how to form them:

Gerundio

Forming regular gerunds in Spanish (-ing form)

Forming irregular gerunds in Spanish (-ing form)

 

Look at and listen to these examples:

The present perfect progressive in Spanish

ESTAR	Verbs ending in -AR LLAMAR (to call)	Verbs ending in -ER, -IR APRENDER (to learn) VIVIR (to live)
he estado	llamando	aprendiendo viviendo
has estado
ha estado
hemos estado
habéis estado
han estado

For irregular gerunds see Verb list: Irregular gerunds of the form -iendo and Verb list: Irregular gerunds of the form -yendo

See also: Forming El Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto Progresivo with estar + gerund (pluperfect progressive)