CSG124

Compound Tenses: The Present Perfect and the Past Perfect 113

10-16

ejercicio

Sorpresas en una reunión. Traduce. Usa el vocabulario util.

Lina had planned to see her old ffiends from school. She had not seen them in quite some time. So many years had passed! She went into the ballroom and observed from a corner. Lina had gone to many football games with Gerard, an athletic and good-looking young man, blond and without eyeglasses. Had he become this heavy man, bald and with glasses? Helena had been Lina’s rival. She had always attracted boys with her long hair and beautiful figurę. Had she really kept her beauty? Or perhaps she had visited a plastic surgery center? Lina decided to come out of the corner and face her possible critics. That is life!

athletic	atletico(a)	(eye) glasses	los lentes
bald	calvo(a)	good-looking	hermoso(a)
beauty	la belleza	plastic surgery	la cirugia plastica
corner	una esquina/un rincón	to become	hacerse, comertirse
critic	el/la cntico(a)	to face	enfrentar

Other Compound Tense Fornis: The Preterit Perfect

The preterit perfect (el preterito anterior) is included here mainly for recognition. Its use is practically limited to formal or li ter ar}⁷ style; nowadays, it is hardly used in everyday communica-tion. It is formed with the preterit (el preterito) of haber and the past participle of the verb. Like the pluperfect, it is translated into English as had + past participle.

hubę pagado, vendido, salido	hubimos pagado, vendido, salido
hubiste pagado, vendido, salido	hubisteis pagado, vendido, salido
hubo pagado, vendido, salido	hubieron pagado, vendido, salido
Guando hubo terminado, fuimos a su	As soon as he had finished, we went into his
despacho.	Office.
When Is the Preterit Perfect Tense Used in Spanish?

Notę the name of this tense in Spanish: preterito anterior. Anterior indicates prior or before. The preterit perfect tense is used when:

• the action or event expressed in the preterit perfect happened immediately before another past action. The preterit perfect is ffequently replaced by the preterit.

En cuanto hubo empezado la pe lic ula, Angela se sentó. ] As soon as the movie had En cuanto empezó la pelicula, Angela se sentó.    j started, Angela sat down.