Español — The past anterior (pretérito anterior)
The pretérito anterior marks an action finished immediately before another past action. It is almost purely literary today, formed with the preterite of haber plus a past participle, and appears in a subordinate clause after cuando, apenas, en cuanto or no bien.
How it works
Use the preterite of haber (hube, hubiste, hubo…) plus the participle in a subordinate clause introduced by a temporal conjunction; the main clause carries a preterite. The anterior event happens the instant before the main one: Cuando hubo terminado la carta, la firmó; Apenas hube llegado, sonó el teléfono; En cuanto hubieron cenado, se marcharon; No bien hubo amanecido, partieron.
The paradigm
| Person | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| yo | hube terminado | (the moment) I had finished |
| tú | hubiste terminado | (the moment) you had finished |
| él / ella / usted | hubo terminado | (the moment) he/she had finished |
| nosotros / nosotras | hubimos terminado | (the moment) we had finished |
| vosotros / vosotras | hubisteis terminado | (the moment) you all had finished |
| ellos / ellas / ustedes | hubieron terminado | (the moment) they had finished |
Good to know
In everyday speech this tense is dead: speakers use the simple preterite instead (Cuando terminó la carta, la firmó) or the pluscuamperfecto (Cuando había terminado…). Reserve the pretérito anterior for formal or literary writing, and only after a temporal conjunction — it never stands alone in a main clause: say Terminó la carta, not «Hubo terminado la carta» on its own.