Breakdown of El juez ha abierto el juicio.
abrir
to open
haber
to have (auxiliary)
el juez
the judge
el juicio
the trial
Questions & Answers about El juez ha abierto el juicio.
Why is the past participle abierto here if the current lesson is about verbs ending in -cho?
While this lesson focuses on irregular past participles ending in -cho (like hecho or dicho), abrir (to open) is another major irregular verb you need to know that often appears alongside them. Instead of ending in -cho, its past participle ends in -to: abierto. A regular form like "abrido" does not exist!
Why use ha abierto instead of the simple past tense?
Ha abierto is the present perfect tense, built with the helper verb haber plus a past participle. In Spain, this tense is heavily used for actions that happened recently or within an unfinished time frame (like "today" or "this morning"). It maps exactly to the English "has opened".
The word juicio looks tricky to pronounce. How do you say it in Spain?
It is roughly pronounced "HUEE-thee-oh". The j makes a strong breathy "h" sound, the ui blends together to sound like "wee", and in Spain, the c before an i or e is pronounced like the "th" in the English word "think".
What happens to the spelling of juez if there is more than one judge?