Unit 10: Structures with “hacer,” introduction to perfect tenses, translation considerations (part 1)
10.8 The Past Perfect Tense
Just as the present tense of haber + past participle are used to form the present perfect tense, the imperfect tense of haber + past participle are used to form the past perfect tense. You have already seen one form of the imperfect tense of haber, había, which stands alone to mean “there was” or “there were.” The past perfect tense is as follows:
| Decir | ||
|---|---|---|
| YO | había dicho | I had said/ told |
| TÚ | habías dicho | you (fam.) had said/ told |
| ÉL, ELLA, UD. | había dicho | he/she/you (form.) had said/told |
| NOSOTROS | habíamos dicho | we had said/told |
| VOSOTROS | habíais dicho | you (fam. pl.) had said/told |
| ELLOS, ELLAS, UDS. | habían dicho | they/you (form. pl. [fam. pl. in L.A.]) had said/told |
The past perfect tense (also called the pluperfect tense) in Spanish has the same meaning as in English and in both languages it is used to refer to the more distant in time of two past events:
| Cuando vinimos a casa, vimos que se había limpiado. | When we came home, we saw that it had been cleaned. |
In the above example, the past perfect tense communicates that the two past actions were not simultaneous, but rather that the cleaning of the house took place prior to the arriving at home.
At times there is a specified past point of reference (instead of a conjugated verb in the past); other times this point of reference is unexpressed and simply understood:
| A los diecinueve años, Alfonso nunca había manejado un automóvil. | At age 19 Alfonso had never driven a car. |
| Habíamos estado en Ibiza ocho días. | We had been in Ibiza for a week.* |
* Be aware that ocho días often translates as “a week” in Spanish. (When days are counted, starting with, for example, Monday, it is counted as day one and day eight). Likewise, quince días at times translates as “two weeks” rather than 15 days.
Remember that the last example can be expressed with the non-systemic use of hacer:
| Hacía ocho días que estábamos en Ibiza. | We had been in Ibiza for a week. |
