matar means: to kill, to blow away, to butcher, to cut down, to slaughter, to slay, to swat
Click to see all conjugation charts of matar in every tense

In this Spanish conjugation lesson we will learn how to conjugate the verb matar in the Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto B 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 B to English

Note that the English phrases 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 B 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.

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 B tense, we use the Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjuntivo B (Imperfect Subjunctive B) conjugation of haber
• Past Participle, which is always the same in every compound tense for a given verb

Check out the conjugation charts to learn how to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber. That’s a separate topic, so for brevity we are focusing on the parts derived from matar only in this lesson.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 have to 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 matar:

• the stem is: mat-
• and the ending is: -ar

Based on the ending of the infinitive we can recognize that matar belongs to the -ar verb group. This group, in turn, uses the -ado ending in its Participio form. Putting all that together, our Participio is: matado.

And now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, let’s proceed with creating the final conjugation forms. 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 B, which is hubiese. And to that we add the Participio matado to get hubiese matado:

• yo hubiese matado – I had killed

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

• tú hubieses matado – you had killed

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

• él hubiese matado – he had killed
• ella hubiese matado – she had killed
• usted hubiese matado – (formal) you had killed

The first person plural has the form hubiésemos matado. 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 B tense: hubiésemos. Second, and to this word we again add the Participio of matar: matado to get hubiésemos matado:

• nosotros hubiésemos matado – we had killed
• nosotras hubiésemos matado – (feminine) we had killed

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 B tense, second person plural, and it’s hubieseis. Next, we take our unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get hubieseis matado:

• vosotros hubieseis matado – (plural) you had killed
• vosotras hubieseis matado – (feminine, plural) you had killed

And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form hubiesen matado. 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 B conjugation. It is hubiesen. We add the Participio of matar again (matado) to get hubiesen matado:

• ellos hubiesen matado – they had killed
• ellas hubiesen matado – (feminine) they had killed
• ustedes hubiesen matado – (formal, plural) you had killed

¡Ya está! The conjugation is now complete. That’s the final result:

yo	hubiese matado	I had killed
tú	hubieses matado	you had killed
él/ella/usted	hubiese matado	he/she/it had killed
nosotros/nosotras	hubiésemos matado	we had killed
vosotros/vosotras	hubieseis matado	you had killed
ellos/ellas/ustedes	hubiesen matado	they had killed

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

Next Steps to Perfection To practice this conjugation and test your skills try 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 A (subjuntivo)Futuro Perfecto (subjuntivo)  For exercises and examples related to matar visit our Exercise section To see conjugation charts in all tenses for matar visit the Conjugator To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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