decir means: to say, to tell, to speak, to mention
Click to see all conjugation charts of decir in every tense

In this Spanish conjugation lesson we will learn how to conjugate the verb decir in the Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto A tense of the Subjuntivo mood. It means we will see step by step how to create and translate forms of each grammatical person.

How to translate Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto A to English

Notice that the phrases in English provided below next to each conjugation are not direct translations from Spanish to English. They are usually the closest general equivalents. The example differences are:

• In Spanish conjugation, there is the form usted in the third person singular. But this person does not translate to the English third person singular. It translates to the so called formal you and uses the inflected form which is most often represented as he/she/it in English conjugation charts.
• Similar situation happens in the third person plural, where ustedes translates to the English plural formal you but uses the form which corresponds to the they form in English.
• Tenses are used differently in Spanish and English, so the actual translation should always take into account the context and focus on translating the meaning, not just words.
• In both languages each verb may have multiple meanings and not every meaning translates directly to the other language. Here also, the context and focusing on the particular meaning helps to create the most accurate translation.

Step by step instructions

Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto A is a compound tense (Spanish: compuesto). It means that all of its conjugated forms consist of two words. In Spanish language, there are also simple tenses, where each conjugated verb form is one word long.

In a compound tense the endings of the auxiliary verb change, not the endings of the main verb, which is the case in Spanish simple tenses.In the compound tenses, every person’s form consist of two parts:

• An inflected form of the auxiliary verb haber. In case of the Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto de Subjuntivo A tense, we use the Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjuntivo A (Imperfect Subjunctive A) conjugation of haber
• Past Participle, which is always the same in every compound tense for a given verb

See the conjugation charts to learn how to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber. That’s a separate topic, so for brevity we’ll focus on the parts derived from decir only in this lesson.This verb has an irregular Participle which needs to be remembered. It is dicho. In order to create the first person singular form, we need to take the first person singular form of haber conjugated in Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjuntivo A, which is hubiera. To that we add the Participio dicho to get hubiera dicho:

• yo hubiera dicho – I had said

Next, to create the form for the second person singular, we again need to take the second person singular form of haber from the Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjuntivo A tense, and that is hubieras. To this auxiliary verb we add the Participio dicho (so the exact same word as previously) to get hubieras dicho:

• tú hubieras dicho – you had said

Similarly, if we want to create the form for the third person singular, we conjugate haber in the Pretérito Imperfecto A tense and we use the corresponding person’s form (third person singular), namely hubiera. Then we also take the same Participio as for all other persons, and putting them together we get hubiera dicho:

• él hubiera dicho – he had said
• ella hubiera dicho – she had said
• usted hubiera dicho – (formal) you had said

The first person plural has the form hubiéramos dicho. It’s created by following the same logic as in the other persons. We first take the form of the first person plural from haber conjugation in the Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjuntivo A tense: hubiéramos. Second, and to this word we again add the Participio of decir: dicho to get hubiéramos dicho:

• nosotros hubiéramos dicho – we had said
• nosotras hubiéramos dicho – (feminine) we had said

Again, let’s do the same for the second person plural. We have to get the inflected form of the verb haber in the Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjuntivo A tense, second person plural, and that’s hubierais. Next, we take our unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get hubierais dicho:

• vosotros hubierais dicho – (plural) you had said
• vosotras hubierais dicho – (feminine, plural) you had said

And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form hubieran dicho. We create it in the exact same manner as in all the other grammatical persons. We need the third person plural of haber first, from its Pretérito Imperfecto A conjugation. It is hubieran. We add the Participio of decir again (dicho) to get hubieran dicho:

• ellos hubieran dicho – they had said
• ellas hubieran dicho – (feminine) they had said
• ustedes hubieran dicho – (formal, plural) you had said

This is it! The conjugation is now complete. The final result looks as follows:

yo	hubiera dicho	I had said
tú	hubieras dicho	you had said
él/ella/usted	hubiera dicho	he/she/it had said
nosotros/nosotras	hubiéramos dicho	we had said
vosotros/vosotras	hubierais dicho	you had said
ellos/ellas/ustedes	hubieran dicho	they had said

Click to see all conjugation charts of decir in every tense
But do not end your session yet – it is very important to repeat and practice the material in order to remember it. Check below for suggestions.

Next Steps to Perfection To practice this conjugation and test your skills check this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game To see other conjugation lessons for this verb choose another tense: PresentePretéritoImperfectoCondicionalFuturoPretérito Perfecto CompuestoPretérito PluscuamperfectoFuturo PerfectoCondicional PerfectoPretérito Perfecto Compuesto (subjuntivo)Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto B (subjuntivo)Futuro Perfecto (subjuntivo)  For exercises and examples related to decir visit our Exercise section To see conjugation charts in all tenses for decir visit the Conjugator To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

---