The 12 Basic English Tenses: Past Perfect

Past Perfect

The Past Perfect tense is quite an easy tense to understand and to use. This tense talks about the "past in the past".

In this lesson we look at the structure and use of the Past Perfect tense, followed by a quiz to check your understanding.

How do we make the Past Perfect tense?

The structure of the Past Perfect tense is:

subject	+	auxiliary have	+	main verb
		conjugated in Past Simple
		had		past participle

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

The main verb is invariable in past participle form: -ed (or irregular)

For negative sentences we insert not between the auxiliary verb and the main verb.

For question sentences, we exchange the subject and the auxiliary verb.

Look at these example sentences with the Past Perfect tense:

	subject	auxiliary verb		main verb
+	I	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?

Contraction with Past Perfect

When we use the Past Perfect in speaking, we often contract the subject and the auxiliary verb. We also sometimes do this in informal writing:

I had	I'd
you had	you'd
he had she had it had	he'd she'd it'd
we had	we'd
they had	they'd

• I'd eaten already.
• They'd gone home.

In negative sentences, we may contract the auxiliary verb and "not":

• I hadn't finished my meal.
• Anthony hadn't had a day off for months.

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.

The train had left when we arrived.
past	present	future
Train leaves in past at 9:00
9:00 9:15
We arrive in past at 9:15

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?"

You can sometimes think of the Past Perfect tense like the Present Perfect tense, but instead of the time being now the time is before.

	have done →
had done →
	past	present	future

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 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.