describir means: to depicture, to describe
In this lesson we will learn how to conjugate the verb describir in the Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto A tense of the Subjuntivo mood. It means we will see step by step how to get the following conjugation:
| yo | hubiera describido | I had depictured |
| tú | hubieras describido | you had depictured |
| él/ella/usted | hubiera describido | he/she/it had depictured |
| nosotros/nosotras | hubiéramos describido | we had depictured |
| vosotros/vosotras | hubierais describido | you had depictured |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | hubieran describido | they had depictured |
How to translate Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto A to English
Notice that the English phrases in the third column of the above conjugation chart are not direct translations from Spanish to English. They are usually the closest general equivalents. The example differences are:- In Spanish, 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 inflected verb form is one word long. A compound tense is indicated by the ending of the auxiliary verb, not by the ending of the main verb, which is the case in Spanish simple tenses. In the compound tenses, every person’s form consist of two parts:
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| See the conjugation charts to learn how to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber. That’s a separate topic, so for brevity we will focus on the parts derived from describir only here. In order to create the Participio form, we need a stem and an ending. We use the stem of the infinitive of the main verb, and a single ending, which depends on the conjugation group of the main verb. So we start by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s very easy to do – just remove two letters from the end of the infinitive form and you have the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem. So for our verb:
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| Based on the ending of the infinitive we can tell that describir belongs to the -ir verb group. This group, in turn, uses the -ido ending in its Participio form. Putting all that together, our Participio is: describido. Now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, let’s move on with creating the final conjugation forms. |
In order to create the first person singular form, we simply take the first person singular form of haber conjugated in Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjuntivo A, which is hubiera. To that we add the Participio describido to get hubiera describido:
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 it is hubieras. And to this auxiliary verb we add the Participio describido (so the exact same word as previously) to get hubieras describido:
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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 describido:
The first person plural has the form hubiéramos describido. 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 describir: describido to get hubiéramos describido:
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Again, let’s do the same for the second person plural. We need 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 describido:
And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form hubieran describido. 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 describir again (describido) to get hubieran describido:
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¡Ya está! The conjugation is now done. But don’t end your session yet – it’s important to repeat and practice the material in order to remember it. Check below for next steps.
Next Steps
- To practice this conjugation and test your skills try this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game
- For exercises and examples related to describir visit our Exercise section
- To see conjugation charts in all tenses for describir visit the Conjugator
- To explore other learning materials visit the Study section
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