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.
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.
- 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 | Verbs conjugated with |
| 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 |