O mais-que-perfeito simples — a forma literária em -ra
Portuguese has TWO mais-que-perfeito tenses (the 'past-of-the-past', equivalent to English 'had spoken'): the COMPOUND form tinha falado / havia falado (auxiliary in imperfeito + particípio), which dominates speech, and the SIMPLE form falara / comera / partira, a single inflected word inherited directly from Latin pluperfect. They mean the same thing — both express an action completed BEFORE another past action — but the simple form is now confined to formal writing: literature, journalism, historical narrative. A C1 reader MUST recognize it: Quando cheguei, ele já partira = when I arrived, he had already left = já tinha partido. The endings (1ª conj.) are: -ara, -aras, -ara, -áramos, -áreis, -aram; (2ª/3ª): -era, -eras, -era, -êramos, -êreis, -eram / -ira, -iras, -ira, -íramos, -íreis, -iram. Build them on the 3rd-person plural pretérito stem minus -ram: falaram → falá- → falara; comeram → come- → comera; partiram → parti- → partira. CRITICAL TRAP: the 3ª pessoa do plural is identical to the pretérito perfeito (falaram = they spoke / they had spoken — context disambiguates). A second trap: falara also looks like the futuro do conjuntivo of irregular verbs is NOT the same — falar in fut.subj. is falar / falares / falar, no -a. Production is rare; recognition is essential.
Why two mais-que-perfeitos? Compound vs. simple
Latin had a synthetic pluperfect (one word: amaveram). Portuguese inherited it directly as amara, amaras… — this is the SIMPLE mais-que-perfeito. Over time, speakers replaced it with a compound built from ter / haver + particípio: tinha amado, havia amado. The compound won speech entirely; the simple form retreated to literary registers. Today: COMPOUND tinha falado = spoken, neutral, default in conversation, journalism quotes, modern prose dialogue. SIMPLE falara = same meaning, but feels formal, elevated, 'narrative voice'. You will MEET it constantly when reading: novels (Saramago, Lobo Antunes, Eça de Queirós), broadsheet news headlines and lead paragraphs, historical writing, official communiqués. Equivalence is total: Já tinha visto o filme = Já vira o filme = I had already seen the film. The simple form is more compact (one word), which is why journalists like it for headlines.
How to build the simple form — 3.pl pretérito − -ram + endings
RULE: take the 3rd-person plural of the pretérito perfeito, remove -ram, then attach the mais-que-perfeito endings. 1ª CONJ. (-ar): falaram → falá- + -ra, -ras, -ra, -ramos, -reis, -ram = falara, falaras, falara, faláramos, faláreis, falaram. 2ª CONJ. (-er): comeram → come- + same endings = comera, comeras, comera, comêramos, comêreis, comeram. 3ª CONJ. (-ir): partiram → parti- + endings = partira, partiras, partira, partíramos, partíreis, partiram. The first-plural form takes a circumflex/acute on the stem vowel: faláramos, comêramos, partíramos — this distinguishes it visually from the simple pretérito falámos / comemos / partimos. Note the acute á in faláramos is EP spelling (BR also writes faláramos); there is no PB/EP divergence here.
Irregular verbs — the same trick works
Even with irregular verbs, the recipe (3.pl pretérito minus -ram + endings) holds. Memorize a handful: ter (had) → tiveram → tive- → tivera, tiveras, tivera, tivéramos, tivéreis, tiveram = had had. ser/ir (was/went, identical in pretérito) → foram → fo- → fora, foras, fora, fôramos, fôreis, foram. estar → estiveram → estive- → estivera, estiveras…. fazer → fizeram → fize- → fizera, fizeras, fizera, fizéramos, fizéreis, fizeram. dizer → disseram → disse- → dissera, disseras, dissera, disséramos, disséreis, disseram. ver → viram → vi- → vira, viras, vira, víramos, víreis, viram. vir → vieram → vie- → viera, vieras, viera, viéramos, viéreis, vieram. pôr → puseram → puse- → pusera, puseras…. trazer → trouxeram → trouxe- → trouxera, trouxeras…. querer → quiseram → quise- → quisera, quiseras… (also the form behind the fixed expression quem me dera! = if only!, lit. 'who would have given me'). poder → puderam → pude- → pudera, puderas…. The pattern is utterly mechanical once you know the pretérito 3.pl.
Where you'll meet it — registers and idioms
PROSE: 'O homem que comprara a casa nunca lá voltara' = 'The man who had bought the house had never gone back there.' (Two simple mais-que-perfeitos in one sentence — pure literary style.) NEWS LEADS: 'O ministro declarara, na véspera, que…' = 'The minister had declared, the day before, that…'. HISTORY: 'D. Afonso Henriques conquistara Lisboa em 1147' (also commonly with conquistou as simple past). FROZEN IDIOMS: the simple form survives in a few set expressions even in speech. Quem me dera! = If only! / I wish! (lit. 'who would have given me') — extremely common, even informally. Pudera! = No wonder! / Naturally! (lit. 'it could'). Tomara que… = I hope that… (more BR than EP, but heard). These idioms are the 'fossils' of a once-living tense. RHETORICAL/EMPHATIC USE: a writer may slip into the simple form to mark a passage as elevated or to compress a long compound: Tudo o que sonhara desfez-se num instante = everything he had dreamed shattered in an instant.
Disambiguation — the pretérito-perfeito 3.pl trap
The 3rd-person plural of the simple mais-que-perfeito is IDENTICAL in form to the 3.pl of the pretérito perfeito. falaram can mean 'they spoke' (pret.) OR 'they had spoken' (m.q.p.s.). comeram = they ate / they had eaten. partiram = they left / they had left. CONTEXT decides. Triggers for the m.q.p.s. reading: a SUBORDINATE temporal clause with a past anchor. 'Quando cheguei, eles já saíram' is unusual; in writing you'd more naturally see já tinham saído or já saíram as colloquial. But a sentence like 'No momento em que entrei, todos os convidados já partiram há muito' uses partiram as m.q.p.s. = 'had long since departed'. In modern reading, treat ambiguous -aram / -eram / -iram by checking: is there an earlier past event that this one preceded? If yes, m.q.p.s. is plausible. SAFE STRATEGY: when in doubt, mentally substitute tinham + particípio. If it fits the meaning, the simple m.q.p.s. reading is correct.
Pitfalls and EP usage notes
Pitfall 1: trying to USE the simple m.q.p.s. in speech. Don't. Native speakers will find it strange or comically formal outside the quem me dera / pudera idioms. Stick to tinha falado in conversation. Pitfall 2: confusing the simple m.q.p.s. with the futuro do conjuntivo. falar / falares / falar / falarmos / falardes / falarem (fut.subj.) vs falara / falaras / falara / faláramos / faláreis / falaram (m.q.p.s.). The fut.subj. has NO -a- in the singular endings; the m.q.p.s. does. Pitfall 3: confusing fora (m.q.p.s. of ser/ir) with fora the adverb/preposition meaning 'outside / except'. Context: Estava fora = he was outside (adverb). Já fora = he had already gone (verb, m.q.p.s. of ir). Pitfall 4: mis-stressing faláramos / comêramos / partíramos — the accent is OBLIGATORY (1.pl). Without it, falaramos would be unstressed where it shouldn't be. Pitfall 5: assuming the simple form is dead. It's alive on the page; ignore it at your peril when reading EP literature or quality press.
