The Perfect Tense

The perfect tense:

Describes action that was completed in the past

Describes action done at a specific time in the past

Is often translated with the helping verbs “has” “have” or “did”

The perfect tense is

expressed in Latin by a set of special endings!

Perfect tense endings

īistīit

imusistisērunt

Singular Plural

These endings are added to the 3rd

principal part. The really nice part? The endings are the same for every conjugation!

Let’s use the following verbs:parō doceō ducō audiōparāre docere ducere audīreparāvī docuī duxī audīvīprepare teach lead hear

NOTE THAT THE 3RD PRINCIPAL PART ALWAYS ENDS IN ī

Take parāvī. Drop the final i. Add the perfect endings

to the perfect stem: parāv +…

The first conjugation:

parāvī (I prepared)parāvistī

parāvit

parāvimus

parāvistis

parāvērunt

The second conjugation

docuī(I taught)docuistī

docuit

docuimus

docuistis

docuērunt

The third conjugation

duxī(I led)duxistī

duxit

duximus

duxistis

duxērunt

The fourth conjugation

audīvī(I heard)audīvistī

audīvit

audīvimus

audīvistis

audīvērunt

finis