preterite of 'haber'

Question

My ESL students told me that no one ever uses, for example, "Hube pasado...", whereas "Yo había pasado..." is just fine. My fellow instructors agreed that the pretérito anterior is not used in Mexico and Central America outside of literature. To me, that means that the only use of the preterite forms of 'haber' is the impersonal 'hubo'. Are these observations true in Spain and South America as well?

Answer 1

When I first endeavored to learn Spanish, I asked for books and a dictionary. I wanted to read Isabel Allende, Gabriel García Márquez, Victor Hugo, and Cuahtemoc Cardenas to name a few. What resulted is a Spanish so filled with literary phrases, that people had a hard time understanding me. On the plus side, I found it easier to corelate and incorporate the new coloquial prhases when I had a good foundation in proper sentence structure. All this, to say your observation is correct. There are many examples of truly correct words not being used. Did you know that Quizá is correct, and not Quizas? Yet, both are in the dictionary.

Define "correct"! Does the dictionary refer the reader from Quizas to Quizá? Usually they direct users from "incorrect forms" to accepted ones ... until the incorrect ones become accepted, that is! :-) - Lector_Constante, Jun 8, 2011

Answer 2

My fellow instructors agreed that the pretérito anterior is not used in Mexico and Central America outside of literature.

That tense is probably not used anywhere except in literary Spanish, and even there, its usage is clearly decreasing. In spoken Spanish it sounds a bit pedantic at the moment, but in the near future, it might sound as archaic as "thy" or "thou" (pronouns that most modern English speakers do not know how to use correctly, by the way).

Did you know that Quizá is correct, and not Quizas?

"Quizas" surely does not exist, but "quizás" does. I don't know what century you are talking about when you say that "quizás" is not correct, but both "quizá" and "quizás" have been documented for at least three centuries in literature (and included in the dictionary), and indirectly in spoken Spanish, so I can't see how can it be incorrect.

Answer 3

My ESL students told me that no one ever uses, for example, "Hube pasado...", whereas "Yo había pasado..." is just fine.

At the moment, I can´t think of a situation were "hube" would be used, although it is a valid conjugation of "haber."

In recreating more than one past action in a sentence while indicating one action completed and another happening after the completed action, in 1st person we would say it as in your example: "Ya había pasado, cuando la vi" or "La vi cuando ya había pasado." In either structure, "I didn´t see her until I had already passed by."