Past perfect

We use past perfect:

For an action that happened before another past action

or before a stated time in the past.

- The thieves had already left before the pólice arrived

USE...
For an action which finished in the past an whose result
was visible in the past.

- John was happy yesterday. He had signed a major contract.

 For 2 actions happening at different times in the past.

- Carla didn’t have lunch because she had eaten a

sándwich before.

USE...
Events in the past (which order the events had)

- The car had crashed into a wall which totally collapsed

1. The car crashed

2. The Wall collapsed

 STRUCTURE…
The auxilary verb (have) is conjugated in the Past
Simple: had

The main verb is invariable in past participle form: -ed

(or irregular)
 AFFIRMATIVE

Subject + Had + Verb past participle + Complement

 NEGATIVE

Subject + hadn’t/ had not + Verb past participle + Complement

 INTERROGATIVE

Had + Subject + Verb past participle + Complement + ?

Sujeto Verbo Auxiliar Forma corta Pasado participio

I I’d
You You’d Studied
He had He’d Visited
She She’d Worked…
It It’d
We We’d
They They’d
 • The past simple tense and past participle of all regular
verbs end in -ed. For example:

VERB PAST
PARTICIPLE • The question is, how do we pronounce the -ed? The
answer is, in 3 ways:
  Before

 After

Time words/  Already

phrases used  At time

with the past  For
perfect  Since

 Just

 Until

 By

 By the time, etc

 • You had studied English before you moved to New York.

• I had never seen such a beautiful beach before I went to

Kauai

• I didn’t have any money because I had lost my wallet.

• The film had finished when he arrived.

Examples… • She had been my friend before she transferred to

another school.