Past Perfect Tense

The past perfect tense is quite an easy tense to understand and to use. This tense talks about the "past in the
past".
How do we make the Past Perfect Tense?
The structure of the past perfect tense is:
subject

auxiliary verb HAVE

main verb

conjugated in simple past tense

past participle

had

V3

For negative sentences in the past perfect tense, we insert not between the auxiliary verb and main verb.
For question sentences, we exchange the subject and auxiliary verb. Look at these example sentences with
the past perfect tense:
subject

auxiliary verb

main verb

had

finished

my work.

You

had

stopped

before me.

She

had

not

gone

to school.

We

had

not

left.

Had

you

arrived?

Had

they

eaten

dinner?

How do we use the Past Perfect Tense?

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

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

Look at some more examples:

I wasn't hungry. I had just eaten.

They were hungry. They had not eaten for five hours.
I didn't know who he was. I had never seen him before.
"Mary wasn't at home when I arrived."
"Really? Where had she gone?"

For example, imagine that you arrive at the station at 9.15am. The stationmaster says to you:

"You are too late. The train has left."

Later, you tell your friends:

"We were too late. The train had left."

We often use the past perfect tense in reported speech after verbs like said, told, asked, thought,
wondered:
Look at these examples:

He told us that the train had left.

I thought I had met her before, but I was wrong.
He explained that he had closed the window because of the rain.
I wondered if I had been there before.
I asked them why they had not finished.

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 heppened first.
Forming the 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.

Subject

HAVE

Past Participle

Contraction

had

arrived.
eaten.

I'd arrived.
I'd eaten.

You

had

arrived.
eaten.

You'd arrived.
You'd eaten.

He

had

arrived.
eaten.

He'd arrived.
He'd eaten.

She

had

arrived.
eaten.

She'd arrived.
She'd eaten.

It

had

arrived.
eaten.

It'd arrived.
It'd eaten.

We

had

arrived.
eaten.

We'd arrived.
We'd eaten.

They

had

arrived.
eaten.

They'd arrived.
They'd eaten.

The past perfect simple is often used when we report what people had said/thought/believed.

He told me they had already paid the bill.

He said he believed that John had moved to Italy.
I thought we had already decided on a name for this product.

Affirmative
I had decided
You had decided

Negative
Interrogative
I hadn't decided
Had I decided?
You hadn't decided Had you decided?

He, she, it had decided

We had decided
You had decided
They had decided

He hadn't decided
We hadn't decided
You hadn't decided
They hadn't decided

Had she decided?

Had we decided?
Had you decided?
Had they decided?

Past perfect, function

The past perfect refers to a time earlier than before now. It is used to make it clear that one event happened
before another in the past. It does not matter which event is mentioned first - the tense makes it clear which
one happened first.
In these examples, Event A is the first or earliest event, Event B is the second or latest event:
Event A
John had gone out
I had saved my document
When they arrived
He was very tired

Event B
when I arrived in the office.
before the computer crashed.
we had already started cooking
because he hadn't slept well.
Simple Past Perfect Verb Tense Chart

Auxiliary
-

Subject

Main Verb

Verb
your letter, and then sent it for
I

had

stamped
you.

the books form the library, and

We

had

read
returned them last week.

She

had

played

had

not

lived

outside for an hour.

in New York, before, I moved to
Paris.
very much, that is why you failed

- You

had

not

studied
your test.
all day, so when he got home was

He

had

not

eaten
hungry.

to the vet. He was very sick for

Had

the dog

gone
last week.
your teacher. She left you a

Had

you

called
message a few days ago.

Had

she

cleaned

the house yesterday, because we

had a party.

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.
Look at the time line below.

I ate a big breakfast

7:30am

I went to school

Now

8:00am

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.
Here is a common way to write (or say) these two actions using the past perfect. The past perfect is
written in red.
Before I went to school, I had eaten a big breakfast.
-ORAfter I had eaten breakfast, I went to school.

http://www.myenglishteacher.net/pastperfecttense.html
http://www.eslgold.com/grammar/past_perfect.html
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses_past-perfect.htm
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/pastpf.htm
http://www.english-the-easy-way.com/Past_Tense/Past_Perfect_Tense_Chart.htm