PAST PERFECTTENSE

The past perfect tense is often used in English when we are relating two events which happened in the past. It helps to show which event happened first.

The past perfect tense expresses action in the past before another action in the past. This is the past in the past.

Example:

•The train left at 9am. We arrived at 9.15am. When we arrived, the train had left.

PAST PERFECT FORM

USE 1 Completed Action Before Something in the Past

The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past.

Examples:

•I had never seen such a beautiful beach before I went to Pulau Redang.•I did not have any money because I had lost my wallet.

USE 2 Duration Before Something in the Past (Non-Continuous Verbs)

With Non-Continuous Verbs and some non-continuous uses of Mixed Verbs, we use the Past Perfect to show that something started in the past and continued up until another action in the past.

Examples:

•We had had that car for ten years before it broke down.•By the time Alex finished his studies, he had been in London for over eight years.

Although the above use of Past Perfect is normally limited to Non-Continuous Verbs and non-continuous uses of Mixed Verbs, the words "live," "work," "teach," and "study" are sometimes used in this way even though they are NOT Non-Continuous Verbs.

IMPORTANT Specific Times with the Past Perfect

Unlike with the Present Perfect, it is possible to use specific time words or phrases with the Past Perfect. Although this is possible, it is usually not necessary.

Example:

•She had visited her Japanese relatives once in 1993 before she moved in with them in 1996.

I went to see the movie. We had discussed it in class.

Here, we KNOW that the discussion took place FIRST -- even though the sentence describing it comes afterwards. We discussed the movie, and THEN I went to see it. This can be very useful when you are telling a story or relating a sequence of events. At any point in your story, you can jump BACK to a previous event, and your reader will not be confused, because the past perfect will make it clear that the event happened previously

How to form past perfect tense

This tense is formed using two components: the verb HAVE (in the past tense), and the past participle form of a verb.

With a regular verb the past participle ends with -ED (just like the simple past). Irregular verbs have a special past participle form that you have to learn.

Here are the rules, using the regular verb "arrive" and the irregular verb "eat":

Subject HAVEPast

ParticipleContractio

n

I hadarrived.eaten.

I'd arrived.I'd eaten.

You hadarrived.eaten.

You'd arrived.You'd eaten.

He hadarrived.eaten.

He'd arrived.

He'd eaten.

She hadarrived.eaten.

She'd arrived.She'd eaten.

It hadarrived.eaten.

It'd arrived.

It'd eaten.

We hadarrived.eaten.

We'd arrived.

We'd eaten.

They hadarrived.eaten.

They'd arrived.They'd eaten.

Using The Past Perfect

Look at the following sentences.  Which happened first?

We all felt so sick.  We took strange medicine.  

We can only assume that the people in the above situation, first, felt sick and then took strange medicine.  However, in English, there is grammar that can make the above situation very clear.  It is called the past perfect.   

How do we use past perfect tense?

The past perfect is used to show you which of two events happened first. Imagine that two things

happened in the past:

EXAMPLE 1

I went to see the movie.

We discussed the movie in class.

Here, we don't know which order the events happened in. That may be important -- perhaps I went to see the movie after the discussion, or maybe I saw the movie before the discussion. There are many ways to make this sequence clear, and the past perfect is one of them. This is how we do it:

You probably know what perfect means (100% pure, no problems).  However, in English grammar, the word perfect means past. 

Whenever you see the word perfect referring to English grammar, just say past.  Therefore, the past perfect means past past. 

This is exactly what the past perfect means: the past past.  In other words, it is an action that happened (and finished) before another action in the past.

What happened first?  What happened second?First:  I ate breakfast.Second:  I went to school.

REMEMBER: Both of these activities happened in the past!  However, one happened before the other.

I Ate Breakfast I Went Now To School

7.30A.M 8.00 A.M

Look at the time line below.Look at the time line below.

Before I went to school, I had eaten a big breakfast.

-OR-

After I had eaten breakfast, I went to school.

Here is a common way to write (or say) these two actions using the past perfect.  The past perfect is written in red.What do you notice about the past perfect? 

First, you should have noticed that the past perfect is the action (had eaten a big breakfast) that happened BEFORE the other action in the past (went to school).

The second thing you probably noticed is that the past perfect is written with had and a past participle.  The past participle and the simple past are usually the same if the simple past ends in -ed.

If the simple past does NOT end in -ed, the past participle is probably different from the simple past.   To see a list of these irregular simple past verbs and past participle verbs, click here (the past participles are in orange).

Here is how the past perfect is formed:

I had eaten

subject + had +past

participle

Here's another timeline.  Look at the timeline and make a sentence with the past perfect and the word before.

What happened first?  What happened second?First:  Sam cooked dinner.

Second:  Carol got home.

Therefore, the answer is

Before Carol got home, Sam had already cooked dinner.

EXAMPLE

NOTE: The past participle of cook is cooked, which is the same as the simple past (cooked).  

Using the word after, you can write the following:After Sam had cooked dinner, Carol got home.

If you use the words after or before in this type of situation, the simple past is sometimes used with BOTH actions because the words after and before already make the time relationship clear. 

In other words, when the words after and before are used, the past perfect is sometimes NOT used.  The following example shows this:

Before Carol got home, Sam cooked dinner. After Sam cooked dinner, Carol got home.

Although the past perfect is sometimes not used in this type of situation, we recommend you use the past perfect, especially in formal writing.There are other phrases that are commonly used with the past perfect:

by   (time)             by the time          when

By, by the time, and when mean before.

CONTINUE

By 3:30, Carol had already gotten home.

By the time Carol got home, Sam had already cooked dinner. When Carol got home, Sam had already cooked dinner.

We all felt so sick.  We took strange medicine.

Take a look at the following examples:

 Which happened first?  The answer is we don't know.  The writer of these 2 sentences didn't use the past perfect.  As far as we know, these 2 events could have happened at the same time.  Now, you know why using the past perfect is so important.  

Now, let's go back to the first sentence above.