Simple pluperfect (literary)

What it is

The simple pluperfect (pretérito mais-que-perfeito simples) is a one-word form meaning "had done": fizera = tinha feito, dissera = tinha dito. It belongs to literature, formal narration and some journalism. In conversation Brazilians say tinha feito, except in a handful of frozen exclamations: Quem me dera!, Pudera!, Tomara!

At C1 you need to recognise it instantly and use the exclamations naturally.

How it is formed

Take the third-person plural of the preterite and replace -am with the pluperfect endings. Every verb, regular or irregular, follows this rule.

The full paradigm of falar: falara, falaras, falara, faláramos, faláreis, falaram. Two things to notice:

• The nós and vós forms take a written accent: faláramos, fizéramos, fôramos.
• The eles form is identical to the preterite: eles falaram can mean "they spoke" or "they had spoken". Context decides, which is why writers often switch to tinham falado in the plural.

When you meet it

• Literary narration: Ele voltou à cidade onde nascera. Novelists use it to step back in time without the heavier tinha + participle.
• Formal prose and the press: O deputado, que já fora ministro, negou as acusações.
• Frozen exclamations in everyday speech:
  • Quem me dera! ("I wish!"): Quem me dera ter férias agora! / Quem me dera que fosse verdade.
  • Pudera! ("No wonder!"): Ele está cansado? Pudera, trabalhou a noite toda.
  • Tomara (que) ("I hope so"): Tomara que chova amanhã. It takes the present subjunctive.

A reading strategy

When a verb in a narrative ends in an unstressed -ra, ask whether it describes something earlier than the story's main events. If it does, read it as tinha + participle: Quando cheguei, ele já saíra → já tinha saído. If the form has an accent on the last syllable (sairá), it is the future, not the pluperfect.

In context

Read this short passage and notice how each pluperfect steps back in time:

Marta abriu a gaveta onde guardara as cartas da avó. Ninguém as lera desde 1980, quando a família se mudara para Curitiba. A avó dissera, antes de morrer, que um dia alguém entenderia aquelas páginas.

Decoded: guardara = tinha guardado; lera = tinha lido; se mudara = tinha se mudado; dissera = tinha dito. The only preterite that moves the story forward is abriu; entenderia is a conditional (the future seen from the past).

Contrasts and traps

• falara vs falará: the pluperfect is stressed on the second-to-last syllable (fa-LA-ra); the future carries an accent on the last (fa-la-RÁ). One accent turns "had spoken" into "will speak".
• fora is also an adverb ("outside", "apart from"): Fora isso, tudo bem. Compare Ele já fora avisado ("he had already been warned").
• vira can be "had seen" (ver) or "turns" (virar): Ninguém vira nada vs O ônibus vira à esquerda.
• Keep it out of conversation, except for the exclamations: ele já saíra sounds like a novel. Say ele já tinha saído.
• It is not a subjunctive: se eu tivera is not a normal Portuguese condition. Use the imperfect subjunctive: se eu tivesse.

If you speak Spanish

This is the trickiest false friend in the verb system. Spanish hablara is above all an imperfect subjunctive (si yo tuviera), but Portuguese falara is an indicative pluperfect (= había hablado). So never write se eu tivera dinheiro: Portuguese needs se eu tivesse dinheiro. The good news is that written Spanish keeps a trace of the old meaning in journalistic phrases like quien fuera ministro ("who had been minister"), which works exactly like Portuguese que fora ministro. And ojalá has a Portuguese partner in tomara que, with the same present subjunctive after it.