Preterite Perfect Tense in Spanish Grammar
- When to use the past anterior in Spanish
- Conjugation of the preterite perfect
- How to form the Spanish participle
- Signal words for the preterite perfect
- Online exercises to improve your Spanish
- Lingolia Plus Spanish
What is the preterite perfect?
The preterite perfect, also past anterior (el pretérito anterior), is a Spanish past tense that is usually only found in literary texts.
The preterite perfect indicates an action that took place directly before another past action. In modern Spanish, it is usually replaced by the pluperfect tense.
Learn about the conjugation and use of the past anterior in Spanish grammar with Lingolia, then practise in the exercises.
Head to our tense comparison section to see how the past anterior compares to the other Spanish tenses.
Example

Tan pronto como hubo cobrado su primer sueldo, Iván corrió raudo y veloz a comprar una guitarra para poder ir a rondar a su amada.
When to use the past anterior in Spanish
The past anterior, or preterite perfect, expresses an action that took place directly before another action in the past.
- Example:
- Tan pronto como hubo cobrado su primer sueldo, Iván corrió raudo y veloz a comprar una guitarra para poder ir a rondar a su amada.As soon as he had received his first paycheck, Iván ran quickly to buy a guitar with which to serenade his girlfriend.
Conjugation of the preterite perfect
To conjugate the preterite perfect (pretérito anterior), we need the verb haber in the preterite tense and the participle of the main verb.
Person | haber | Participle |
---|---|---|
yo | hube |
hablado aprendido vivido |
tú | hubiste | |
él/ella/usted | hubo | |
nosotros/-as | hubimos | |
vosotros/-as | hubisteis | |
ellos/ellas/ustedes | hubieron |
How to form the Spanish participle
We form the Spanish participle by adding -ado or -ido to the root of the verb.
- add -ado to the root of -ar verbs
- Example:
- hablar → habladospeak → spoken
- add -ido to the root of -er and -ir verbs
- Example:
- aprender → aprendidolearn → learned
- vivir → vividolive → lived
Note
When the root of the verb ends in a vowel, the -i of the ending -ido takes an accent: -ído.
- Examples:
- leer → leídoread → read
- oír → oídohear → heard
- traer → traídobring → brought
Note: Participles that contain a dipthong (weak vowel + weak vowel) such as construido or huido do not take an accent.
Check out our Spanish-language page on accents to learn more about dipthongs.
Irregular participles
Certain verbs have an irregular participle form as shown in the table below:
Verb | Irregular Participle | Regular Participle |
---|---|---|
abrir | abierto | |
cubrir | cubierto | |
decir | dicho | |
escribir | escrito | |
hacer | hecho | |
freír* | frito | freído |
imprimir* | impreso | imprimido |
morir | muerto | |
poner | puesto | |
proveer* | provisto | proveído |
romper | roto | |
satisfacer | satisfecho | |
suscribir** | suscrito/suscripto | |
ver | visto | |
volver | vuelto |
*Some verbs have two participle forms, one regular and one irregular. There is no difference in meaning and they can be used interchangeably.
**The participle suscripto is used in certain countries in Latin America.
Derivative irregular verbs
Many verbs are derivative; they are derived from irregular verbs by adding a prefix. Their participles are also irregular:
- Examples:
- encubrir → encubiertohide → hidden
- descubrir → descubiertodiscover → discovered
- componer → compuestocompose → composed
- posponer → pospuestopostpone → postponed
- proponer → propuestopropose → proposed
- revolver → revueltostir → stirred
- resolver → resueltoresolve → resolved
- devolver → devueltoreturn → returned
- deshacer → deshechoundo → undone
- predecir → predichopredict → predicted
- prever → previstoforecast → forecasted
Note: although derived from the irregular verb romper, the participle of the verb corromper is regular.
- Example:
- corromper → corrompidocorrupt → corrupted
- not:
corroto
Signal words for the preterite perfect
The pretérito anterior is indicated by the following words:
- apenas
- así que
- cuando
- en cuanto
- luego que
- no bien
- tan pronto como
- una vez que