trabajar means: to work
Click to see all conjugation charts of trabajar in every tense

In this conjugation lesson we will see how to conjugate the verb trabajar 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 inflected 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:

• A conjugated 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 are focusing on the parts derived from trabajar 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 need to begin by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s very easy to do – simply remove two letters from the end of the infinitive to get the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem.So for trabajar:

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

Based on the ending of the infinitive we can recognize that trabajar 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: trabajado.

Now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, we can proceed 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 trabajado to get hubiera trabajado:

• yo hubiera trabajado – I had worked

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 trabajado (so the exact same word as previously) to get hubieras trabajado:

• tú hubieras trabajado – you had worked

Similarly, if we want to create the form for the third person singular, we conjugate haber in the Pretérito Imperfecto A tense and we utilize 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 trabajado:

• él hubiera trabajado – he had worked
• ella hubiera trabajado – she had worked
• usted hubiera trabajado – (formal) you had worked

The first person plural has the form hubiéramos trabajado. 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 trabajar: trabajado to get hubiéramos trabajado:

• nosotros hubiéramos trabajado – we had worked
• nosotras hubiéramos trabajado – (feminine) we had worked

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 it’s hubierais. Next, we take our unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get hubierais trabajado:

• vosotros hubierais trabajado – (plural) you had worked
• vosotras hubierais trabajado – (feminine, plural) you had worked

And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form hubieran trabajado. 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 trabajar again (trabajado) to get hubieran trabajado:

• ellos hubieran trabajado – they had worked
• ellas hubieran trabajado – (feminine) they had worked
• ustedes hubieran trabajado – (formal, plural) you had worked

That’s it! The conjugation is now done. Put together, the conjugation chart looks like this:

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

Click to see all conjugation charts of trabajar 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 next steps.

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 trabajar visit our Exercise section To see conjugation charts in all tenses for trabajar visit the Conjugator To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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