Spanish past perfect: A comprehensive guide
Alicia Fernández
• May 3, 2024
• 10 minutes
Updated May 3, 2024
In this volume, we discuss the alphabet, definite and indefinite articles, and verbs ser and estar, among other topics.
Our language offers various ways to discuss past events, depending on the context, timing, and frequency. As the name indicates, the past perfect, pluperfect, or pluscuamperfecto is a past tense; but, how is it different from the past simple? When do we use it? What does perfect mean?
Don’t worry! In this article, you will get all the answers to your questions. You will learn everything you need to know about this tense, including conjugation, usage, and we’ll also compare it to the past simple. At the very end, you will get a chance to practice what you learned.
Eager to get started? Let’s go!
The past perfect is a compound tense, meaning it is formed with two verbs. If you are familiar with the present perfect, the past perfect is conjugated similarly. Both tenses are formed with the verb haber (to have) plus the past participle or participio of the main verb. The difference is that the present perfect uses the present indicative form of the verb haber (Yo he comido), while the past perfect uses the imperfect tense of the auxiliary verb haber (Yo había comido).
¡Ojo! Remember, any time you see perfect/perfecto as part of the name of a tense (present perfect, past perfect, future perfect, etc.) it means it is a compound verb, and you will be using an auxiliary verb, haber, plus the main verb.
As you know, an auxiliary verb, also called a helping verb, adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs. It provides the information of person, number, tense, and mood. Auxiliary verbs may not hold independent meaning, but they play a crucial role in supporting the main verb. Just like English auxiliary verbs (e.g., can, will, have, must, do), they often require the company of an infinitive or participio to make sense.
¡Ojo! Do not confuse the verb haber (to have) with tener (to have). Haber is mostly used as an auxiliary verb, and it is also used to express existence: Hay dos manzanas (There are two apples.) On the other hand, tener indicates possession and ownership: Tengo dos hermanos (I have two brothers.)
Take a look at the following examples:
Francisco había estado aquí antes.
(Francisco had been here before.)
Irene ya había comido cuando llegó su marido de trabajar.
(Irene had already eaten when her husband came home from work.)
Nosotros ya nos habíamos despertado cuando sonó el despertador.
(We had already woken up when the alarm clock rang.)
As you have just seen in the examples above, the past perfect is made up of two verbs, an auxiliary verb and the main verb (había estado, había comido, nos habíamos despertado.)
¡Ojo! When conjugating a reflexive verb, just place the reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nos, os, se) in front of the verb. Unlike English, the auxiliary verb and the past participle are never separated. For negative sentences, place no in front of the verb as well (Yo no había estado en esa ciudad).
To recap, to conjugate the past perfect tense in Spanish, follow this formula:
Subject + Imperfect tense of haber + Participio (past participle) of the main verb.
Let’s take a look at the complete conjugation of the verb haber in the imperfect tense:
Haber
Yo había
Tú habías
Él/Ella/Usted había
Nosotros/Nosotras habíamos
Vosotros/Vosotras habiáis
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes habían
¡Ojo! Remember, haber does not have meaning on its own, it needs the main verb.
We can also use the verb form había as an impersonal form to express there was/there were:
Había una persona en el edificio. (There was one person in the building.)
Había muchas personas en el edificio. (There were many people in the building.)
Unlike English, we use only the third-person singular form whether we are talking about one thing/person or multiple.
The past participle of regular verbs is formed by adding -ado to -ar verbs and -ido to -er and -ir verbs once you drop the -ar, -er, or -ir endings (hablar: hablado, comer: comido, vivir: vivido,...). In English, we add -ed to form the past participle of regular verbs (ask: asked, look: looked, start: started, talk: talked, want: wanted).
Let’s take a look at some regular verbs in the participio form:
Let’s put it all together:
Todavía no había salido el sol cuando sonó el despertador.
(The sun had not yet risen when the alarm clock went off.)
Ella había vivido en Cuba antes de mudarse a Ohio.
(She had lived in Cuba before moving to Ohio.)
Nosotros habíamos bebido mucha agua.
(We had drunk a lot of water.)
Ellos ya habían compartido las buenas noticias.
(They had already shared the good news.)
Tú siempre habías tenido mucha suerte.
(You had always been very lucky.)
So far, we have only covered regular verbs in the participio form. What about irregular verbs?
Irregular verbs break away from conventional rules, making them a unique set to memorize. Much like irregular past participles in English (e.g., awake - awoke, choose - chosen, drive- driven, speak - spoken, tell - told), Spanish irregular verbs often end in -to or -cho, deviating from the norm.
Let’s take a look at some common irregular past participles in Spanish:
¡Ojo! The verbs freír, proveer, and imprimir are the only verbs in Spanish that have two participles, one regular and the other irregular: freír (freído/frito), proveer (proveído/provisto), and imprimir (imprimido/impreso).
¡Ojo! As you may have noticed, all irregular verbs are either -er or -ir verbs.
Let’s see some irregular verbs in action:
Nosotros ya habíamos visto esa película.
(We had already seen that movie.)
Eva ya había vuelto de clase cuando llegamos.
(Eva had already returned from class when we arrived.)
Margarita ya había abierto los regalos antes de su cumpleaños.
(Margarita had already opened her gifts before her birthday.)
Ellos ya habían resuelto el problema.
(They had already solved the problem.)
¡Ojo! Generally, the past participle is used to form compound tenses such as the past perfect; however, past participles can also function as adjectives, meaning they have to agree in gender and number with the noun they are modifying:
Alfonso había abierto las ventanas.
(Alfonso had opened the windows.)
Las ventanas estaban abiertas.
(The windows were open.)
In the last example, abiertas functions as an adjective; therefore, it is agreeing in gender (feminine) and number (plural) with the noun it is modifying (ventanas).
You may have noticed that the past perfect tense is often preceded by the adverb ya (already) to show that an event was fully completed or had already happened before another past action or specific point in time. Other common expressions used in the past perfect tense are: aún/todavía (still), nunca (never), antes (before).
Antes de llegar a casa, ya me había quitado los zapatos.
(Before I got home, I had already taken off my shoes.)
Manuel nunca había visto un eclipse solar.
(Manuel had never seen a solar eclipse.)
Estaba preocupada porque todavía no me habían llamado.
(I was worried because they hadn't called me yet.)
¡Ojo! Notice that after antes de we use the infinitive form of the verb (Antes de llegar…). We can also use a noun: Antes de la cena (Before dinner.) However, after antes de que… the imperfect subjunctive would be triggered: Antes de que ella llegara (before she arrived), antes de que me llamaras (before you called me).
Now, you know how to form the past perfect tense in Spanish; but, do you know when it is used? As mentioned previously, the past perfect is formed similarly to the present perfect; it is also similar to the present perfect in that the past perfect also refers to an action in the past. However, the present perfect, if you remember, refers to a past action that has a result in the present (Ya he comido; Hemos estado en Italia, Nunca ha ido a un concierto.) The past perfect, or pluperfect tense, does not have a connection to the present but to another past action or event that happened after it. So, if two events happened in the past, the past perfect would happen BEFORE the past simple:
Cuando Isabel llegó a la fiesta, los invitados ya habían comido.
(When Isabel arrived at the party, the guests had already eaten.)
In this example, we have two past events: Isabel's arrival and the guests having eaten. Which event occurred first? The guests ate before Isabel arrived. In such cases, we use the past perfect tense to describe the earlier event (guests eating), while the past simple is used for the later event (speaker's arrival). Here's another example:
Cuando la película empezó, mis padres ya se habían comido todas las palomitas.
(By the time the movie started, my parents had already eaten all the popcorn.)
Once again, we have two actions/verbs in the past: the movie started, and they ate all the popcorn. Which one happened first? That’s right! They ate all the popcorn before the movie started.
In this example, we have two verbs: one in the past simple (empezó) and another in the past perfect (habían comido). To determine the sequence of events, ask yourself: which action happened first? They finished eating all the popcorn prior to the movie starting. Remember, the past perfect tense always represents the earlier action compared to the past simple.
Occasionally, sentences with the past perfect tense might not have two verbs. In those instances, the implication is that the action occurred before another completed past action, without explicitly stating the second verb. For example:
El avión ya había despegado cuando llegamos al aeropuerto.
(The plane had already taken off when we arrived at the airport.)
El avión ya había despegado.
(The plane had already taken off.)
In the first example, the second action (arriving at the airport) is mentioned, while in the second example, we do not have a second action, but it is implied that the plane had taken off prior to another action in the past.
¡Ojo! When listing several past completed actions in the past as a sequence, do not use the past perfect. Instead use the preterite tense for each action: Ellos llegaron, comieron y se fueron. (They arrived, ate, and left.)
Congratulations! You did it! We have reached the end of this article. You should now have a solid grasp on the past perfect or pluscuamperfecto in Spanish; how to form it, when to use it, and the differences between the past perfect and the past simple tenses. I think it’s time to test your knowledge with the following activities.
Ready?
Quiz
Remember to use an online dictionary, such as https://www.linguee.com/english-spanish, if you do not know the meaning of a word.
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Answer Key:
Indicate if the following verbs are conjugated in the past simple or past perfect
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Answer Key:
Indicate whether the following verbs are conjugated in the present perfect or the past perfect.
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Answer Key:
Alicia Fernández is a content writer at Berges Institute.
