Reflecting on Two Past Perfect Tenses in Spanish
Spanish has two past perfect verb tenses: the pluperfect and the preterit perfect. These verb tenses use the imperfect and preterit conjugations of haber (to have) followed by a past participle. In English, you use the helping verb had plus a past participle to form these tenses.
The pluperfect and the preterit perfect convey past actions that are more past than others. For example, in the sentence, After I had heard that grasshoppers were a delicacy in Mexico, I decided to try them, had heard is the past perfect verb because it happened before the speaker decided to try the crunchy critters.
Even though the two tenses have different conjugations of haber in Spanish, they’re translated exactly the same into English. The difference between the tenses is when you use them. Pluperfect is commonly used in conversation. Preterit perfect is commonly used in formal writing and literature.
In most cases, you’re going to use the pluperfect. You can pretty much ignore the preterit perfect, unless you’re reading or writing a novel in Spanish or presenting a formal paper.
Forming the pluperfect tense
To form the pluperfect tense, you start with the imperfect conjugation of the verb haber and then tack on the past participle of the main verb. Fortunately, haber follows the rules of regular -er verbs in the imperfect tense — dropping the infinitive verb ending and then add the endings -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, and -ían. Following is the conjugation chart you need to etch on your brain cells.
The Imperfect Tense of Haber
| Conjugation |
Translation |
| yo había |
I had |
| tú habías |
You (informal) had |
| él/ella/ello/uno había |
He/she/one had |
| usted había |
You (formal) had |
| nosotros habíamos |
We had |
| vosotros habíais |
You all (informal) had |
| ellos/ellas habían |
They had |
| ustedes habían |
You all (formal) had |
Coming up with the right conjugation of haber is just the first step in forming your compound verb conjugation. You must then add the past participle of the verb whose action is being described.
Here are some example sentences using the pluperfect:
Touching on the preterit perfect
Of the seven compound tenses, the preterit perfect is the one you’re likely to use least often. It’s a strictly formal tense that may come in handy for your reading or composition but won’t come up in conversation.
To form the preterit perfect, you begin with the preterit tense of the verb haber and then add the past participle of the main verb. It just so happens that the preterit conjugations of haber are irregular, so you need to memorize the following conjugation chart.
The Preterit Tense of Haber
| Conjugation |
Translation |
| yo hube |
I had |
| tú hubiste |
You (informal) had |
| él/ella/ello/uno hubo |
He/she/one had |
| usted hubo |
You (formal) had |
| nosotros hubimos |
We had |
| vosotros hubisteis |
You all (informal) had |
| ellos/ellas hubieron |
They had |
| ustedes hubieron |
You all (formal) had |
Don’t forget to add the past participle of the main verb. It must appear immediately after the verb haber.
Here are some example sentences using the preterit perfect:

Spanish Glossary
adjective
A word that describes a noun or pronoun, giving it specific attributes or characteristics.

Spanish Glossary
adverb
A word used to modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb by expressing time, place, degree, and so on. Many Spanish adverbs end in -mente.

Spanish Glossary
bartering
Giving goods or services in return for other goods and services, as opposed to the exchange of money.

Spanish Glossary
cardinal number
Any number used in counting or showing how many.

Spanish Glossary
comparative
A form of an adjective or adverb which indicates that one thing has some feature to a greater or lesser extent than the thing it is being compared to. Example: slower, more believable.

Spanish Glossary
conditional
A verb tense that expresses an action that should have, could have, or would have happened if the conditions were right.

Spanish Glossary
conjugate
To give different forms of a verb according to voice, mood, tense, number, and person. A conjugated verb is a verb that has been changed from its infinitive form to a form that agrees with the subject.

Spanish Glossary
consonant
Any of the letters b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z; the double letters ch, ll, and rr may also be considered consonants in Spanish.

Spanish Glossary
customs
1. The government agency in charge of collecting taxes or duties imposed on imported and/or exported goods. 2. The common social acts and conventions of a particular area.

Spanish Glossary
declare
To inform customs officials of any goods you’re carrying that may be taxable.

Spanish Glossary
definite article
Any one of the words el, la, los, or las used as adjectives to point out a specific noun.

Spanish Glossary
demonstrative adjective
An adjective that indicates or points out this, that, these, or those people, places, or things to which a speaker is referring.

Spanish Glossary
demonstrative pronoun
Replaces a demonstrative adjective and its noun.

Spanish Glossary
diminutive
1. Small. 2. A word that has been altered with a suffix to indicate a degree of smallness, often ending with -ito or -ita.

Spanish Glossary
diphthong
A complex vowel sound made by gliding from one vowel sound to the next within the same syllable.

Spanish Glossary
direct object noun
A sentence element that answers the question, Whom or what is the subject acting upon? and may refer to people, places, things, or ideas.

Spanish Glossary
direct object pronoun
Replaces a direct object noun and agrees with it in number and gender.

Spanish Glossary
duty
A tax imposed on imports, exports, or manufactured goods.

Spanish Glossary
future
Verb tense indicating an action to come.

Spanish Glossary
gerund
A verb form that ends in -ing and works like a noun. Spanish gerunds are also derived from verbs.

Spanish Glossary
haggling
Negotiations between a seller and a buyer to come to an agreement upon the price of an item for sale. The vendor typically proposes a high price while the buyer suggests a significantly lower price, and, through bartering, the two typically meet somewhere in the middle.

Spanish Glossary
imperative
A verb mood that indicates a command or request.

Spanish Glossary
imperfect
Verb tense indicating a continuing, uncompleted, customary, or simultaneous past action.

Spanish Glossary
indefinite article
Any one of the words un, una, unos, or unas used as adjectives to point out some person, place, thing, or idea, but not a specific one.

Spanish Glossary
indirect object noun
Answers the question To or for whom is the subject doing something? and refers only to people or beloved pets.

Spanish Glossary
indirect object pronoun
Replaces an indirect object noun, but is also used when the indirect object noun is mentioned.

Spanish Glossary
infinitive
The unconjugated form of a verb — dormir (to sleep), for example.

Spanish Glossary
interrogative adverb
An adverb used to ask a question.

Spanish Glossary
interrogative pronoun
A word that replaces a noun and is used to ask a question.

Spanish Glossary
market
1. (noun) In Spanish cultures, a traditional market is where vendors gather to sell their goods. Markets may be open or under a roof, and they offer a less formal shopping environment than typical supermarkets or grocery stores. Prices are usually negotiable. 2. (verb) To advertise and sell an item.

Spanish Glossary
mood
1. A characteristic of a verb that indicates the manner in which the action occurs. 2. A characteristic of a person that indicates the overall emotional state of that person.

Spanish Glossary
ordinal number
A number used to indicate order in a particular series.

Spanish Glossary
past participle
A form of a verb that expresses a completed action or a time gone by.

Spanish Glossary
possessive adjective
A word that goes before the noun that’s possessed in order to express my, your, his, her, its, our, or their.

Spanish Glossary
possessive pronoun
A word that replaces a noun and its possessive adjective and indicates ownership.

Spanish Glossary
preposition
A word that connects nouns to nouns, verbs to verbs, or verbs to nouns/pronouns and shows their relationship to one another.

Spanish Glossary
prepositional pronoun
A pronoun that serves as the object of a preposition and always follows the preposition.

Spanish Glossary
preterit
Verb tense expressing a past action or state.

Spanish Glossary
pronoun
A word that takes the place of a noun in a sentence.

Spanish Glossary
reflexive pronoun
A pronoun used in conjunction with a reflexive verb to express that an action is performed by a subject on itself.

Spanish Glossary
reflexive verb
A verb that indicates that the sentence's subject is acting upon itself. Reflexive verbs require reflexive pronouns.

Spanish Glossary
stem-changing verb
A verb that requires an internal change in the vowel before the -ar, -er, or -ir infinitive ending in all the singular and third-person plural forms of certain tenses.

Spanish Glossary
subject pronoun
A pronoun used as a subject.

Spanish Glossary
subjunctive
A grammatical mood indicating uncertainty, desire, supposition, hypothetical and theoretical situations, or impersonal opinions.

Spanish Glossary
subordinate clause
A part of a sentence containing a subject and verb that can’t stand on its own but describes something in the larger sentence.

Spanish Glossary
suffix
Letters added to the end of a word that change its meaning, give it a different grammatical function, or form a new word.

Spanish Glossary
superlative
A form of an adjective or adverb which indicates that one thing has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to. Example: greatest, most honorable

Spanish Glossary
syllable
A word or part of a word pronounced with a single sound, usually consisting of a vowel and one or more consonants.

Spanish Glossary
tilde
A mark (~) used in Spanish over an n to indicate the ny sound.

Spanish Glossary
vowel
Any of the letters a, e, i, o, and u. The letter y is never a vowel in the Spanish language, unlike its use in English.