It was a dang-dut CD by Dewi Perssik.Ī few minutes later, I passed an old restaurant. My friend in Indonesia had given it to me a week before. I took a CD from my bag pocket, and put it in the CD player. I had never seen or felt anything strange every time I passed the road. I was driving alone along a quiet country. It was 11.30 at night and it was a warm night. I took my car from the car park at the Sea-Tac airport in Seattle and drove straight home to Enumclaw, some 35 miles from the airport. I was very tired after a total of 20-hour flight of Surabaya-Singapore-San Francisco-Seattle, but I really needed to get home as soon as possible. Notice how the auxiliary verb and the past participle are not separated.After travelling in Indonesia for 3 weeks, I went back home to Enumclaw, Washington State. Here are the same questions in negative form. Note how the word order is different than the English equivalent. To make this sentence negative, the word “no” is placed before the reflexive pronoun (me).įor a review of reflexive verbs click and. Compare how the present perfect differs from the simple present, when a reflexive verb is used.

With reflexive verbs, the reflexive pronoun is placed immediatedly before the auxiliary verb. Pablo had not given a lot of money to his sister. Pablo no le había dado mucho dinero a su hermana. To make this sentence negative, the word “no” is placed before the indirect object pronoun (le). Pablo had given a lot of money to his sister. Pablo le había dado mucho dinero a su hermana. Object pronouns are placed immediately before the auxiliary verb. To make the sentence negative, add the word “no” before the conjugated form of haber.Īgain, the auxiliary verb and the past participle are never separated. The auxiliary verb and the past participle are never separated. Juan had closed the window before leaving. Juan había cerrado la ventana antes de salir. This idea of a past action being completed before another past action need not always be stated it can be implied. When the parents arrived, the children had already eaten. Expressions such as “ya”, “antes”, “nunca”, “todavía” and “después” will often appear in sentences where one action was completed before another.Ĭuando llegaron los padres, los niños ya habían comido. The past perfect tense is used when a past action was completed prior to another past action. In the first example, we use “había” because the subject of the sentence is “Juan.” In the second example, we use “habían” because the subject of the sentence is “Juan y María.” Juan and Maria had put a lot of money in the bank. Juan y María habían puesto mucho dinero en el banco. We do NOT use “habían” to agree with “puertas.” The auxiliary verb is conjugated for the subject of the sentence, not the object. Notice that we use “había” to agree with “Juan”. Let’s look more carefully at the last example: Note that when used to form the perfect tenses, only the base form (abierto) is used. Past participle used in the past perfect tense: However, when used in the perfect tenses, the past participle never changes. When used as an adjective, the past participle changes to agree with the noun it modifies. When you studied the past participle, you practiced using it as an adjective. The following examples all use the past participle for the verb “vivir.”įor a review of the formation of the past participle. Remember, some past participles are irregular. You have already learned in a previous lesson that the past participle is formed by dropping the infinitive ending and adding either -ado or -ido. In Spanish, the past perfect tense is formed by using the imperfect tense of the auxiliary verb “haber” with the past participle. This tense is also known as Pluperfect.īecause the past perfect (pluperfect) is a compound tense, two verbs are required: the main verb and the auxiliary verb. The past perfect is formed by combining the auxiliary verb “had” with the past participle. Subjunctive VIII: Actions not yet completed Subjunctive III: Verbs that change orthographically Subjunctive II: Conjugating regular and stem-changing verbs

Past perfect tense