Spanish · Chapter 10 · Lesson 7 · Grammar primer

Pluperfect

On the AQA A-level grammar list.

The short version

The pluperfect is only for the earlier past

Reach for había plus a participle only when one past action jumps behind another. Two events in plain sequence take two preterites: entré y me senté. Take away the earlier-than relationship and the pluperfect disappears. Ya and todavía no are its natural signposts, marking which side of the 'by then' line you are on.

Cuando llegué a casa, mi hermano ya había cenado.

When I got home, my brother had already had dinner.

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

Read the full article · 6 min read

Practice

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10-question session

One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 22 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 7 of 13 in this chapter

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