Past participles & the pluperfect (tinha feito)

The short answer

The particípio (past participle) is the "-ed" form of the verb: falado (spoken), comido (eaten), feito (done). With tinha it forms the pretérito mais-que-perfeito composto (pluperfect), the past before the past: Quando eu cheguei, eles já tinham saído — When I arrived, they had already left.

How to form it

Regular participles: -ar → -ado, -er and -ir → -ido: falar → falado, comer → comido, partir → partido. After a vowel the í takes an accent: sair → saído, cair → caído.

The irregulars you need most:

The pluperfect is ter in the imperfeito + the participle:

• After tinha the participle never changes: ela tinha comprado, eles tinham comprado.
• Não goes before tinha; in speech an object pronoun goes between the two verbs: Eu não tinha visto. Ele já tinha me avisado.
• ganho, gasto, pago: Brazilians use these short forms after tinha too: Eu já tinha pago a conta. The long forms pagado, ganhado, gastado are also correct there.

When to use it

• An action finished before another past moment: O filme já tinha começado quando a gente chegou.
• Reporting what someone had done: Ela disse que tinha perdido o celular.
• Experience up to a moment in the past, with nunca or já: Eu nunca tinha visto tanta gente na praia.
• News and formal writing use havia + participle: O motorista havia dormido ao volante.
• The participle on its own works as an adjective with estar or ficar: A farmácia estava aberta.

• Quando eu cheguei, eles já tinham saído.When I arrived, they had already left.the past before the past
• Eu nunca tinha visto tanta gente na praia.I had never seen so many people on the beach.nunca + tinha visto
• Ela disse que tinha perdido o celular.She said she had lost her phone.reported speech
• As lojas já estavam fechadas, mas a farmácia estava aberta.The shops were already closed, but the pharmacy was open.participle as adjective

Contrasts and traps

• visto (ver) and vindo (vir): tinha visto = had seen, tinha vindo = had come. Vindo is also the gerund of vir: Ele tá vindo — He's coming.
• Agreement: after tinha, never; with estar or ficar, always. Eu tinha aberto as janelas but as janelas estavam abertas.
• Simple perfeito or pluperfect? When the order is already clear, Brazilians keep the simple perfeito: Primeiro ele saiu, depois eu cheguei. Use tinha + participle when you jump back in time: Quando eu cheguei, ele já tinha saído.
• tenho feito is a different tense. It means "I have been doing (lately)", for something repeated up to now. It is not English "I have done".
• tinha chego: you will hear chego as a participle in speech, but it is stigmatised. Write and say chegado.

If you speak Spanish

Había hecho → tinha feito: Portuguese uses ter as the auxiliary (havia feito exists, but it is written and formal). The irregular participles are close to Spanish: hecho → feito, dicho → dito, puesto → posto, abierto → aberto, while visto and escrito are identical. And remember that he hecho is not tenho feito: for a finished action use the simple perfeito, Já fiz.