Form

‘Pretérito pluscuamperfecto’ is a compound verbal tense with two parts:

Conjugation. When we conjugate the verb, only the auxiliary element (‘haber’) changes to agree with the subject; the second element is used in the participle form (-ado/ido):

The participle in Spanish. ‘Participio’ is one of the three non-personal forms of the verb in Spanish, the other two being the infinitive (estudiar) and the gerund (estudiando). It is formed by dropping the endings -ar/-er/-ir of the infinitive and adding the ending -ado (for -ar) and -ido (for -er/-ir).

Verbos Irregulares.⁴ There is a reduced number of verbs who are irregular: abrir/abierto; absolver/absuelto; cubrir/cubierto; decir/dicho; devolver/devuelto; escribir/escrito; hacer/hecho; morir/muerto; poner/puesto; romper/roto; ver/visto; volver/vuelto.

Some verbs have two forms (regular and irregular): freir/frito – freído; elegir/electo-elegido; imprimir/impreso-imprimido; prender/preso-prendido; proveer/provisto-proveído.

⁴ RAE (b), pages 243-245.