El pasado perfecto / Past Perfect

The past perfect indicative (also known as the pluperfect) tense is used to express an action that had happened. An example in English:

• He had gone out.

To form it, you need to be familiar with the imperfect and the present perfect, which you can review on this site. That said, you take the imperfect indicative form of your helping verb (haber, "to have"), conjugate it to fit your subject, and add the past participle. It's very much like the present perfect, only this time "haber" is conjugated in the imperfect instead of the present. Here is an example of a verb conjugated in the past perfect:

venir (to come)
había venido=I had come
habías venido=you had come
había venido=he/she/you had come
habíamos=we had come
(habíais venido=you had come)
habían venido=they/you had come

Here's how it can be translated:

• I/you/he/she/it/we/they had [verb]ed