Past Participle

A common construction in Spanish is estar + past participle which is used to describe the state or condition that results from an action or change. For example:

Los estudiantes están preocupados. The students are worried.
El gato está espantado. The cat is frightened.
La bicicleta está rota. The bike is broken.

The past participle, like all adjectives, can also be used to directly modify nouns:

los estudiantes preocupados. the worried students.
El gato espantado. The frightened cat.
La bicicleta rota. The broken bicycle.

The past participle is formed by adding -ado to the stem of -ar verbs and -ido to the stem of -er and -ir verbs.

hablar hablado
comer comido
vivir vivido

Many Spanish verbs have irregular past participles. The most common ones are listed below:

abrir abierto cubrir cubierto
decir dicho escribir escrito
hacer hecho morir muerto
resolver resuelto romper roto
ver visto volver vuelto
poner puesto

Compounds of these verbs show the same irregularity in their past participle form:

descubrir descubierto
devolver devuelto
proponer propuesto