Past Perfect

Past Perfect Simple

Had you seen the film before? In reported speech The past perfect is common when we report people's words or thoughts..

The Past Perfect Tense

John said that he had never eaten sushi before. She told me that she had finished , but I knew she had not.

How do we make the Past Perfect tense?

When we talk about something that happened in the past we sometimes want to refer back to something that happened before that time. We can use the past. Past perfect tense is tricky, especially with irregular verbs. Learn to conjugate regular verbs in past perfect and how important irregular verbs.

She wondered why he had been so unkind to her. He told me he hadn't done his homework, but he was hoping to finish it on the bus. I thought I had sent her a birthday card, but I was wrong.

Use of Past Perfect

In if conditional sentences The past perfect tense is used in unreal or hypothetical stituations, as in the following sentences: If I had known you were in Frankfurt, I would have called you. A more formal way of expressing the pluperfect uses the verb "haver".

2. Signal words

Quando cheguei, soube que o meu amigo havia morrido. This periphrastic construction is not permitted in Galician. In Judeo-Spanish , the Latin pluperfect forms with little alteration have been preserved e.

It remains the main spoken form, though in some varieties, similarly to Spanish or Portuguese, the pluperfect is formed using the auxiliary verbs tener or aver plus the past participle. In Romanian , the pluperfect mai mult ca perfect is expressed without any auxiliary words, using a particular form of the verb, originated in the Latin pluperfect subjunctive.

Technically, this form is obtained from the singular third person form of the simple perfect tense by adding specific terminations for each person and number. However, in northern Transylvania there is a regional way to state the pluperfect that may reflect the German influence. In some of the Slavic languages the pluperfect has fallen out of use or is rarely used; pluperfect meaning is often expressed using the ordinary past tense, with some adverb such as "earlier" or other periphrastic construction to indicate prior occurrence.

It was and still is used in daily speech, especially in rural areas. Being mostly unused in literature during Soviet times, it is now regaining popularity. Here is an example of usage: In Slovenian , the pluperfect predpreteklik , 'before the past' is formed with the verb 'to be' biti in past tense and the participle of the main verb. Its use is considered archaic and is rarely used even in literary language.

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We had not finished our work when he came here. I had not told him the truth when he asked me. It was and still is used in daily speech, especially in rural areas. Maybe we are already talking about something in the past and we want to mention something else that is further back in time. They refer to an event a man thinking he has reached the limit of his capacity to suffer , which takes place before another event the man finding that his capacity to suffer has no limit , that is itself a past event, referred to using the past tense found.

The person marking is movable, e. In Serbian and Croatian , the pluperfect "pluskvamperfekt" is constructed with the past tense "perfekt" of the verb to be "biti" plus the adjective form of the main verb. For examples of pluperfects in Bulgarian and Macedonian , see the table below.

Past Perfect Simple - English Grammar - English Grammar

In Welsh , the pluperfect is formed without an auxiliary verb, usually by interpolating -as- before the simple past ending: In Irish , perfect forms are constructed using the idea of being or having been after doing something. In Finnish , the pluperfect pluskvamperfekti is constructed with an auxiliary verb olla 'to be', which is in the past tense. In German and French there is an additional way to construct a pluperfect by doubling the perfect tense particles. Both languages allow to construct a past tense with a modal verb like English "to have", in German "haben", in French "avoir" , for example "I have heard it".

This is largely equivalent to the usage in English. The additional perfect tense is constructed by putting the modal verb "to have" in the past tense as if being the full verb "I have had" followed by the actual verb in the past particle mode "I have had heard it".

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In spoken language in Southern Germany the doubled perfect construction sometimes replaces the Standard German pluperfect construction. In all regions the doubled pluperfect "I had had heard it" is uncommon although it is possible - all of these forms emphasize the perfect aspect by extending the modal verb so that a doubled pluperfect would add upon the pluperfect in another part of the speech. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Past perfect disambiguation.

Form of Past Perfect Simple

Uses of English verb forms. Read about how to make the past perfect here. I'm Seonaid and I hope you like the website. Please contact me if you have any questions or comments. A finished action before a second point in the past. We usually use the past perfect to make it clear which action happened first.

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Maybe we are already talking about something in the past and we want to mention something else that is further back in time. This is often used to explain or give a reason for something in the past.

Past Perfect

I'd eaten dinner so I wasn't hungry.