El Preterito Perfecto

Question

Hi,The link to the above takes you to a page with the sub-heading 'Spanish Present Perfect'.I thought 'preterite' was always related to the past as it says in the text on that page. So, why is it present perfect in Spanish?Thanks.Colin

Accepted Answer

Hola Colin
The words "pretérito" refers to "past" in general. All Spanish past tenses have the word "pretérito" as part of their name (although we often use the shortened versions, e.g. el indefinido instead of el pretérito indefinido). With the Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto (a.k.a el perfecto) this is a bit confusing because in Spanish you have the word "pretérito" but in English the equivalent to this tense has the word "present": the present perfect.
Here's a table showing all the Spanish tenses names so you can see it more clearly.
Saludos
Inma