General Introduction to the trapassato prossimo

In Italian, one of the past perfect tenses which corresponds with the English past perfect tense (also called the pluperfect) is the trapassato prossimo. This is a compound tense, formed using both the past participle of a verb and a conjugated form of either avere or essere.

The past perfect expresses an action that took place in the past before another action was completed. For example, they had left or she had called.

1. The trapassato prossimo is formed with the imperfect of avere or essere, plus the past participle of the verb. The agreement of the past participle must follow the same rules as those for the passato prossimo, meaning that verbs conjugated with the auxiliary verb essere must show agreement in gender and number in the past participle. Take a look at the table below, which shows example verbs using both avere and essere.
   
   

   Verbs conjugated with avere	Verbs conjugated with essere
   avevo parlato	ero andato/a
   avevi parlato	eri andato/a
   aveva parlato	era andato/a
   avevamo parlato	eravamo andati/e
   avevate parlato	eravate andati/e
   avevano parlato	erano andati/e

   
   
2. Examples and Uses
   
   
   1. In most cases, the trapassato prossimo is used to express moments that have occurred before other moments.
      
      

      Erano già partiti quando Raimondo è arrivato. They had already left when Raimondo arrived. Avevo fame perché non avevo mangiato. I was hungry because I hadn’t eaten. Ieri alle due, eravamo appena arrivati al mare. Yesterday at 2, we had just arrived at the beach. Non avete visto Giovanni perché eravate già andati via. You didn’t see Giovanni because you had already left. Non volevamo leggere l’articolo che il professore ci aveva assegnato. We didn’t want to read the article that the professor had assigned to us.

      
      
   2. The trapassato prossimo is also used as a form of courtesy, primarily with the verb venire (to come). In these cases, it substitutes the passato prossimo and is used to avoid an overly direct phrase when speaking to someone politely.
      
      

      Ero venuta a parlare con Lei. I have come to speak with you. Ero venuto a vedere come sta. I have come to see how you are.