# The participle beyond perfect tenses

> id: grammar.verbs.participle-uses · category: grammar · depth: standard · levels: B1 · review: internally_reviewed

**Summary.** Outside haber, the participle is an adjective and agrees: la tienda cerrada, ventanas abiertas, estar + participle for resulting states.

With estar it expresses the state resulting from an action: la puerta está cerrada (someone closed it; now it's closed). As a plain adjective it modifies nouns: un documento firmado, ideas equivocadas.

Absolute constructions open formal sentences: terminada la reunión, salimos ('the meeting over, we left'). Agreement applies everywhere except after haber.

Watch the agreement split: after haber the participle is frozen in -o (hemos abierto las ventanas), but everywhere else — with estar, ser, or as a plain adjective — it agrees in gender and number (las ventanas están abiertas). A handful of verbs keep an irregular participle for these uses (abierto, escrito, roto, hecho, puesto, vuelto).

## Examples
- Las entradas ya están vendidas. — The tickets are already sold.
- Hecho el pago, te mando el recibo. — Once the payment is made, I'll send you the receipt.
- Las cartas ya están escritas y firmadas; he escrito veinte hoy. — The letters are already written and signed; I've written twenty today.

Related: conjugation.nonfinite.participle, grammar.verbs.passive-ser

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