¡Hola, amigos! Did you know that the English compound past and the Spanish pasado compuesto are like two peas in a pod?
These tenses are the ultimate time-travelers, allowing you to talk about something that had happened in the past before yet another event that also took place in the past. It’s amazing how two different languages can create such a similar concept! Let’s see two examples:
I had studied Spanish for two years before I moved to Spain.
Yo había estudiado español por dos años antes de que me mudé a España.
When I arrived, they had already eaten.
Cuando yo llegué, ellos ya habían comido.
Conjugation
Happily, making the pluperfect tense in English is not very different from how it’s done in Spanish!
It’s true! In English, we use had followed by a past participle, while in Spanish, we use haber in the imperfect past followed by a past participle to make the pasado compuesto. How cool is that?
Let’s take the verb hablar as an example. Gael, from Spain, will read it aloud for you:
| Person | Haber | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| yo | había | |
| tú | habías | |
| usted | había | |
| él ella | había | hablado |
| nosotros nosotras | habíamos | |
| ustedes | habían | |
| ellos ellas | habían |
| vos | habías | hablado |
| vosotros vosotras | habíais |
And now, let’s play a couple of games so you become an expert using this tense. You don’t need to identify yourself. Just click start!
Game 1
Game 2
GAME 3
GAME 4
GAME 5
