Grammar: Past Perfect Tense
Past Perfect Tense
So what are the form and the usage of this tense?
Form:
The form of the past perfect is very simple: had + past participle of the main verb. For example,
The boy had played with his friends.
The verb to play is used in the past perfect form as follow:
Affirmative form:
I had played.
You had played.
She/he/it had played.
We had played.
You had played.
They had played.
Negative form:
I had not played.
You had not played.
She/he/it had not played.
We had not played.
You had not played.
They had not played.
Interrogative form:
Had I played?
Had you played?
Had she/he/it played?
Had we played?
Had you played?
Had they played?
As you can see, the verb form does not change with the change of the subject (pronoun).
Usage:
The simple past tense is used to talk about an action happened in the past. But the past perfect is used to talk about an action that happened in the past before another action. below are details of the past perfect usage.
The past perfect tense is used in several situations, like:
A) The past perfect tense is the past equivalent of the present perfect.
Present: John has just left. if you hurry up you'ill catch him.
Past: When I arrived, John had already left.
Present: I have lost my money. I am still looking for it.
Past: I had lost my money and had to borrow 10 dollars from my friend.
The past perfect talks about an action happened before the time of speaking in the past and were still going at that time or stopped at that time or just before. just finished.
For example,
When I arrived, Marry had just left.
When i met Bill he was in uniform. He had been a soldier for ten years.
B) A completed action before another action in the past.
Marry had already left when I arrived.
The first action that happened here is to leave (Marry had left), and the second action that happened in the past is to arrive (I arrived).
I visited England last year. I had never seen a beautiful country like it.
I know that you were in America in 2010, but had you visited it before that year?
You had previously played football before you moved to London.
He had tried much time before he arrived at this solution.
C) To talk about unreal or imaginary things in the past. In the same way that we use the past simple to talk about unreal or imaginary things in the present, we use the past perfect (one step back in time) to talk about unreal things in the past. This is common in the third conditional and after 'wish'.
- If I had known you were ill, I would have visited you.
- She would have passed the exam if she had studied harder.
- I wish I hadn't gone to bed so late!
Exercises:
1--Put the verb in the past perfect tense:
2--Write these sentences using simple past or past perfect tense:
Write your answers in the comments indicating the number of the exercise and the sentence.
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