The perfect tenses, like progressive tenses, are compound verbs, meaning that they are actually formed by two vebs working together. The difference between the two is that while progressive tenses indicate actions in progress (I am walking), perfect tenses indicate completed actions (I have walked). This goes for both English and Spanish.
The perfect tenses are formed by combining the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb - or "helping verb" - haber (to have) with the past participle.
auxiliary / "helping" verb | + | past participle | |
| English | to have | ||
| Spanish | haber |
The verb "haber" is conjugated depending on who or what is doing the action as well as when, and the Spanish past participle is formed by adding "-ado" to the stem of "-ar" verbs (hablar - hablado, andar - andado) and "-ido" to the stem of "-er" and "-ir" verbs (correr - corrido, mentir - mentido).
*** Learn more about past participles: Spanish past participles
"Haber" in Spanish, like "to have" in English, can be conjugated into any tense- present, past, future, conditional, etc. - depending on when the action has been or will be completed.
| Spanish Tenses | conjugated "HABER" | past participle |
| present perfect indicative | he (I have) has (you have) ha (he/she has) hemos (we have) habéis (you all have) han (they have) | hablado |
| past perfect indicative (pluperfect) | había (I had) habías (you had) había (he/she had) habíamos (we had) habíais (you all had) habían (they had) | |
| future perfect indicative | habré (I will have) habrás (you will have) habrá (he/she will have) habremos (we will have) habréis (you all will have) habrán (they will have) | |
| conditional perfect indicative | habría (I would have) habrías (you would have) habría (he/she would have) habríamos (we would have) habríais (you all would have) habrían (they would have) |