It is essential to learn about past participles before learning the present perfect tense. The past participle is a noun formed from the stem of a verb and can be used both as a separate noun with its own meaning and as part of a verb in conjugation. In Persian, the past participle is made using the following formula:

Thus, the past participle of the verb “رفتن” (“to go”) is “رفته”. (first omitting the letter “ن” from the end of the infinitive to get the past stem, “رفت”, and then adding the suffix “ه” to the past stem). The meaning of past participle nouns in Persian is exactly like English; “رفته”, for instance, means “gone”.

The past participle is a noun and hence in pronunciation, the stress is always on its last syllable.

For compound verbs, the past participle is made using exactly the same formula as above. For example, the past participle of the verb “آب رفتن” (“to shrink”) is “آب رفته”, literally meaning “shrunk”.

The present perfect is made up of two parts:

1. past participle of the verb

2. corresponding present simple tense form of the verb “to be” (first conjugation method)

Here is an example for the verb “to say”:

As you see, two forms are possible for the third person singular. Both are correct but in spoken language, only the first one is used.

Persian present perfect is almost exactly like English present perfect in meaning and usage. In pronunciation, the stress is on the last syllable of its past participle part. When it is used in the negative form, like any negative verb, the stress is on the “نـ” prefix.