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:
|
Estar in El Pretérito Perfecto + |
-ando (-AR verbs) |
|
-iendo (-ER and -IR verbs) |
It works the same way as the English present perfect progressive "have been doing". But remember it is "estar" and not "ser".
Look at and listen to these examples:
|
ESTAR |
Verbs ending in -AR |
Verbs ending in -ER, -IR |
|
he estado |
llamando |
aprendiendo |
|
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)
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