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Learn preparar conjugation in Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto

preparar means: to prepare, to coach, to train, to make up, to ready
Click to see all conjugation charts of preparar in every tense

In this Spanish conjugation lesson we will see how to inflect the verb preparar in the Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto tense of the Indicativo mood. It means we will see step by step how to create and translate forms of each grammatical person.

How to translate Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto to English

Notice 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.

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Step by step instructions

Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto is a compound tense (Spanish: compuesto). It means that all of its inflected forms consist of two words. In Spanish language, there are also simple tenses, where each conjugated 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:
  • An inflected form of the auxiliary verb haber. In case of the Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto de Indicativo tense, we use the Pretérito Imperfecto de Indicativo (Imperfect) conjugation of haber
  • Past Participle, which is always the same in every compound tense for a given verb
Check out the conjugation charts and this haber conjugation lesson to learn how to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber. That’s a separate topic, so for brevity we’re focusing on the parts derived from preparar 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 have to start by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s really easy to do – simply remove two letters from the end of the infinitive form to get the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem.So for preparar:
  • the stem is: prepar-
  • and the ending is: -ar
Based on the ending of the infinitive we can tell that preparar 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: preparado.

And 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 need to take the first person singular form of haber conjugated in Pretérito Imperfecto de Indicativo, which is había. To that we add the Participio preparado to get había preparado:
  • yo había preparado – I had prepared
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 Indicativo tense, and it is habías. To this auxiliary verb we add the Participio preparado (so the exact same word as previously) to get habías preparado:
  • tú habías preparado – you had prepared
Similarly, if we want to create the form for the third person singular, we conjugate haber in the Imperfecto tense and we utilize the corresponding person’s form (third person singular), namely había. Then we also take the same Participio as for all other persons, and putting them together we get había preparado:
  • él había preparado – he had prepared
  • ella había preparado – she had prepared
  • usted había preparado – (formal) you had prepared
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The first person plural has the form habíamos preparado. 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 Indicativo tense: habíamos. Second, and to this word we again add the Participio of preparar: preparado to get habíamos preparado:
  • nosotros habíamos preparado – we had prepared
  • nosotras habíamos preparado – (feminine) we had prepared
Again, let’s do the same for the second person plural. We have to get the conjugated form of the verb haber in the Pretérito Imperfecto de Indicativo tense, second person plural, and it is habíais. Next, we take the unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get habíais preparado:
  • vosotros habíais preparado – (plural) you had prepared
  • vosotras habíais preparado – (feminine, plural) you had prepared
And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form habían preparado. 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 Imperfecto conjugation. It is habían. We add the Participio of preparar again (preparado) to get habían preparado:
  • ellos habían preparado – they had prepared
  • ellas habían preparado – (feminine) they had prepared
  • ustedes habían preparado – (formal, plural) you had prepared

Hurray! The conjugation is now finished. That’s the final result:

yohabía preparadoI had prepared
habías preparadoyou had prepared
él/ella/ustedhabía preparadohe/she/it had prepared
nosotros/nosotrashabíamos preparadowe had prepared
vosotros/vosotrashabíais preparadoyou had prepared
ellos/ellas/ustedeshabían preparadothey had prepared
Click to see all conjugation charts of preparar in every tense

But do not 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 Perfection

  • To practice this conjugation and test your knowledge check this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game
  • To see other conjugation lessons for this verb choose another tense:  
  • For exercises and examples related to preparar visit our Exercise section
  • To see conjugation charts in all tenses for preparar visit the Conjugator
  • To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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