Look at these examples to see how the past perfect is used.
He couldn't make a sandwich because he'd forgotten to buy bread.
The hotel was full, so I was glad that we'd booked in advance.
My new job wasn't exactly what I’d expected.
Try this exercise to test your grammar.
- Grammar test 1
Read the explanation to learn more.
Grammar explanation
Time up to a point in the past
We use the past perfect simple (had + past participle) to talk about time up to a certain point in the past.
She'd published her first poem by the time she was eight.
We'd finished all the water before we were halfway up the mountain.
Had the parcel arrived when you called yesterday?
Past perfect for the earlier of two past actions
We can use the past perfect to show the order of two past events. The past perfect shows the earlier action and the past simple shows the later action.
When the police arrived, the thief had escaped.
It doesn't matter in which order we say the two events. The following sentence has the same meaning.
The thief had escaped when the police arrived.
Note that if there's only a single event, we don't use the past perfect, even if it happened a long time ago.
The Romans spoke Latin. (NOT
The Romans had spoken Latin.)
Past perfect after before
We can also use before + past perfect to show that an action was not done or was incomplete when the past simple action happened.
They left before I'd spoken to them.
Sadly, the author died before he'd finished the series.
Adverbs
We often use the adverbs already (= 'before the specified time'), still (= as previously), just (= 'a very short time before the specified time'), ever (= 'at any time before the specified time') or never (= 'at no time before the specified time') with the past perfect.
I called his office but he'd already left.
It still hadn't rained at the beginning of May.
I went to visit her when she'd just moved to Berlin.
It was the most beautiful photo I'd ever seen.
Had you ever visited London when you moved there?
I'd never met anyone from California before I met Jim.
Do this exercise to test your grammar again.
- Grammar test 2
Hello megank333,
The meaning here, if I understand you correctly, is a general one with reference to the lessons. In other words, you are not talking about a particular lesson or lessons, but rather something which is true during all lessons. The correct form here is the present simple (for general truths/typical behaviour) followed by a limiting time phrase:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi shubhamgupta,
You could say, for example, 'I had a red bicycle when I was little.' Could you please be more specific? It's just that there are many, many ways in which 'had' can be used in the past simple. we'd also ask you to ask this question on our past simple page rather than here on our past perfect page.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello zeynepucar,
It's hard to be certain without seeing the broader context, but the second sentence does not look correct to me. The first sentence describes a state in the past which ran up to an point later in the past, and which may have continued.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi parachutist,
I'd say it's common with both the present perfect and the past perfect. The present perfect is used a lot more often than the past perfect, however, so if you looked at the number of occurences of each tense in a specific corpus, particularly of spoken English, I suspect you'd see it more occurences with the present perfect.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi parachutist,
Both of these sentences are correct but describe the event with a different focus. 'Ann had just left' means she had left a short time before I arrived. 'Ann had already left' means that she left sometime before I arrived -- 'already' adds a bit of emphasis to the idea that she left earlier. In many cases, we could use either one of these sentences to speak about the same thing -- the choice of one or the other really depends on how we want to describe it.
'just' is probably more often used with the present perfect, but it can be used with other tenses (including the past perfect) as well. If you read the example sentences on the page I linked to, you'll see what I mean.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team