Unit 3.1
Past Perfect
Introduction
Past perfect is a tense used to talk about actions or events that took place earlier than other past actions and to clarify the idea that something had already happened at the time we are talking about.
Form
The past perfect is made up of the past of the verb to have followed by the past participle.
It has three forms: affirmative, negative and interrogative.
Affirmative
Its structure, in the affirmative form, is:
Subject + had* + past participle + …
In this form:
- had* is the past tense of the verb to have.
- regular past participles are formed by adding -d or -ed to the base form of verbs.
- irregular past participles have to be learned by heart.
| SUBJECT | AUXILIARY VERB | PAST PARTICIPLE |
|---|---|---|
| I/You/He/She/It/We/You/They | had | worked |
Negative
Its full structure, in the negative form, is:
Subject + had not + past participle + …
Negative short form is hadn’t:
Subject + hadn’t + past participle + …
| SUBJECT | AUXILIARY VERB + NOT |
PAST PARTICIPLE |
|---|---|---|
| I/You/He/She/It/We/You/They | had not/hadn’t |
worked |
Interrogative
Its structure, in the interrogative form, is:
Had + subject + past participle + …?
| AUXILIARY VERB | SUBJECT | PAST PARTICIPLE | QUESTION MARK |
|---|---|---|---|
| Had | I/You/He/She/It/We/You/They | worked | …? |
Example
- She hadn’t sent the email when she came back home.
- “I have given the news.” ⇒ You said you had given the news.
- He hadn’t left a message before he came to my house.
- You had told a long story to the children before they slept.
- Had they sealed the envelopes in 2011 and then gave them to the customers?
- If he hadn’t written an essay, he wouldn’t have achieved a good grade.
Use
We use the past perfect to illustrate that one event happened before another in the past.
We use the past perfect tense:
- for something that happened in the past but is important at the time of reporting;
- in reported speech;
- to talk about a completed action that happened earlier than another past action;
- to talk about long-lasting past actions;
- when we refer to specific events that happened in the past;
- with the third conditional.
Summary
Past perfect is used to talk about actions or events that took place earlier than other past actions, in reported speech and with the third conditional.
We can use it in its different forms:
- affirmative: we start with the subject followed by had and the past participle of a verb.
- negative: we start with the subject followed by had not and the past participle of a verb.
- interrogative: we start with had followed by the subjectand the past participle of a verb (the sentence ends with a question mark).
For example:
— “I had worked on important projects before I became the manager.” = In this sentence, there are two different actions that took place in the past. To put them in an order, we write the first action in the past perfect tense, and we used the past simple tense to indicate that the second event happened first.
♦ “I worked on important projects last month.” = We use the past simple to express the idea of an action that started and concluded in the past.
Let’s revise this content within the {Form} section. Take a look at the {Example} section that shows its use within a context.