Past participle as adjective and after tener/llevar

La puerta está cerrada y tengo hechos los deberes.The door is closed and I have my homework done.

You know the past participle from the present perfect (he cerrado). The same form also works as an adjective: it agrees with a noun and describes the state that an action has left behind. This article covers that adjective use and the two verbs, tener and llevar, that put a participle to work in a different way from haber.

Quick shortcut: after haber, the participle never changes (he escrito). As an adjective, and after tener or llevar, it agrees with the noun it describes (tengo escritas tres cartas, llevo leídas cien páginas). When no noun phrase follows, as in set expressions like tengo entendido que…, the participle stays masculine singular.

The participle as an adjective

Like any adjective, a participle agrees in gender and number with its noun:

• una puerta cerrada (a closed door), los ojos abiertos (open eyes)
• las ventas realizadas (the sales made), un café frío y mal hecho (a cold, badly made coffee)
• el libro escrito por Borges (the book written by Borges)

It often replaces a longer relative clause: los alumnos matriculados means los alumnos que están matriculados. Irregular participles work the same way: abierto, escrito, hecho, roto, visto, puesto, vuelto, dicho. A few verbs have two forms, and the shorter one is the usual adjective: un huevo frito (frito is the usual adjective; freído is mostly used as the verbal participle), un documento impreso.

A resulting state: estar, quedar, dejar and others

To describe the state that follows an action, Spanish uses estar + participle, and the participle agrees with the subject:

• La ventana está abierta. (The window is open.)
• Las tiendas están cerradas. (The shops are closed.)

Compare this with ser + participle, which presents the action itself: La tienda fue cerrada por la policía. Other verbs also take a participle that describes the result:

• quedarse / quedar: Se quedó dormido. (He fell asleep.) Quedamos sorprendidos. (We were surprised.)
• dejar + object: Dejó la puerta abierta. (He left the door open.)
• encontrar / ver + object: Encontré la puerta cerrada. Lo vi sentado. (I found the door closed. I saw him sitting.)
• llegar / venir: Llegó agotado. (He arrived exhausted.)

Absolute participle clauses

In writing, a participle at the start of a sentence can set a scene or a point in time, with its own subject (a noun or pronoun) in agreement. The action it describes is already finished:

• Terminada la reunión, salimos. (Once the meeting was over, we left.)
• Aprobadas las leyes, el Parlamento se disolvió. (Once the laws had been passed, Parliament was dissolved.)
• Dicho esto, se marchó. (Having said this, he left.)

These constructions are typical of written and formal Spanish.

Tener + participle: a result you hold

With tener, the participle agrees with the direct object, and the idea is that the result is there now, often with the number of items stressed:

• Tengo escritas tres cartas. (I've got three letters written.)
• Ya tengo decidido que me voy. (I've already decided that I'm going.)
• Tienen reservada una mesa. (They have a table reserved.)

In speech you may hear the participle left unchanged (tengo escrito tres cartas), but the agreeing form is the standard one. Compare it with the present perfect: He escrito tres cartas reports the action, and Tengo escritas tres cartas stresses the present result. A few expressions with tener + participle are very common: tengo entendido que… (I understand that…), tengo pensado… (I'm planning to…).

Llevar + participle: how much so far

With llevar, the participle also agrees with the direct object, and the idea is an accumulated amount up to now, so a quantity is usually present:

• Llevo leídas cien páginas. (I've read a hundred pages so far.)
• Lleva hechas cinco llamadas esta mañana. (She's made five calls so far this morning.)

Do not confuse it with llevar + gerund, which counts time: Llevo dos horas esperando. (I've been waiting for two hours.) The participle version counts what has been done, and the gerund version counts how long it has been going on. For more on the gerund pattern, see Gerund uses.

Common mistakes

• ❌ Tengo hecha los deberes. → ✅ Tengo hechos los deberes. (the participle agrees with the object los deberes, masculine plural.)
• ❌ He escritas tres cartas. → ✅ He escrito tres cartas. / Tengo escritas tres cartas. (after haber the participle never agrees.)
• ❌ La tienda es cerrada. → ✅ La tienda está cerrada. (a resulting state takes estar. Ser gives the passive with an agent: fue cerrada por la policía.)
• ❌ Llevo escribida una carta. → ✅ Llevo escrita una carta. (escribir has the irregular participle escrito, and here it agrees with una carta, so it is escrita.)

Quick check

1. Complete: Tengo ___ (preparar) la cena.
2. Complete: Llevamos ___ (visitar) cinco museos.
3. Choose the right form: Los ojos están ___ (abrir).
4. What is the difference between He leído tres libros and Tengo leídos tres libros?
5. What is the difference between Llevo leídos tres libros and Llevo leyendo tres horas?

Key takeaways

• A past participle can work as an adjective and agrees in gender and number with its noun: una puerta cerrada.
• Estar, quedar, dejar and other verbs + participle describe a resulting state. Ser + participle presents the action as a passive.
• An absolute participle clause sets a scene in written Spanish: Terminada la reunión, salimos.
• Tener + participle shows a result you hold now, and llevar + participle shows an amount accumulated so far. In both, the participle agrees with the direct object.
• After haber, the participle never agrees: he escrito.