Remember the compound past, often called the pluperfect? It refers to an action that happened before another past action, like in this sentence: “When I arrived, they had already eaten.” Here’s a post that explains it in more detail.
Well, we can make it subjunctive, like in: “If I had eaten pizza, I would have enjoyed it.” Actually, in English, there’s no difference between the compound past in the indicative and subjunctive moods, but in Spanish, they are conjugated differently.
In Spanish, this tense is mainly used in conditional sentences (explained in this post). Here are two more examples:
Si hubieran venido, habríamos jugado.
If they had come, we would have played.
Si ellos hubieran ganado el partido, habrían celebrado.
If they had won the game, they would have celebrated.
CONJUGATION
How do we conjugate it? This tense is compound, meaning it consists of two verbs. First, we use haber conjugated in the imperfect subjunctive, followed by the past participle of the main verb. Here is the conjugation chart: Si…
| PERSONA | CONJUGACIÓN | PARTICIPIO PASADO |
|---|---|---|
| YO | HUBIERA | |
| TÚ | HUBIERAS | |
| USTED | HUBIERA | |
| ÉL ELLA | HUBIERA | EJEMPLO: HABLADO |
| NOSOTROS NOSOTRAS | HUBIÉRAMOS | |
| USTEDES | HUBIERAN | |
| ELLOS ELLAS | HUBIERAN |
| PERSONA | CONJUGACIÓN | PARTICIPIO PASADO |
|---|---|---|
| TÚ | HUBIERAS | |
| VOSOTROS VOSOTRAS | HUBIERAIS |
