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 with before
We can also use the past perfect followed by before 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 Arcasso,
In this context there is no difference. The use of the conjunction before removes any possible ambiguity as to the sequence of the actions, so using the past perfect does not change anything.
If before is not used then there may be a difference. For example:
Sentence 1 describes a sequence of actions and we may infer that one followed immediately or very shortly after the other. In sentence 2, the implication is that there is not only a sequence but also a connection between the two actions: taking the plate away was dependent on the first action (finishing the meal). In other words, the first sentence could describe two entirely unconnected but sequential actions, while the second sentence shows a connection of some kind.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Abdul Azeez Ibrahim,
It's true that 'so far' usually refers to the present, which is why it's most often used with the present perfect, but I'm not sure it's completely wrong to use it in this way. If I were writing that, I'd probably replace it with 'until that point' or some similar phrase so as to avoid using 'so far'.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Via,
Your understanding is correct.
As you say, the past perfect (had been built) indicates that an action in the past happened before and was connected in some way to a second, later action. That means it does not exist in isolation without a second time reference; without this, the past perfect does not make sense.
Without any context to indicate a second time reference, only the sentence with the past simple (was built) makes sense here.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi ER,
If we look at the sentence alone, it's not correct because, as you point out, there's only one past action in it. It would need to be in the past simple or present perfect tense.
But, do you know the context of this sentence? What are the other sentences in the conversation? It may be correct if another sentence mentions a past action which this sentence also refers to. For example: We arrived at 7 p.m. and we could hear music. Had the show started already? In this case, the use of the past perfect is correct.
Does that make sense?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi kingsonselvaraj,
That's not quite it. The present perfect isn't for the referred-to action. What I wanted to say was that the present perfect is an option to correct the verb tense in the original sentence. If we analyse the sentence alone (i.e. without the context of any other sentences in the conversation), the tense needs to change to one of these options.
Does that make sense?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello DaniWeebKage,
Yes, I think that's a reasonable summary. The context is always important, of course, as a second time may be implied rather than explicitly stated.
We don't correct posts on LearnEnglish. I know correction is very useful, but we have many thousands of users and reply to many comments every day. It's just not possible for us to correct user posts, unfortunately.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello DaniWeebKage,
Your example isn't a well structured sentence, I'm afraid. I'll try and reformulate it below and then comment on the verb form.
We use the past simple here because we have only one past time reference.
We use the past perfect when we have two past time references: then and before then. If the sentence were about how you felt in the past then the past pefect could be used:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello DaniWeebKage,
Yes, that is grammatically possible. The sentence is describing a feeling or an impression rather than something concrete in the world, so there's a lot of ambiguity in terms of what it is supposed to mean.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kyawkyawsoezhu,
You could use either the past perfect (we had finished) or the past simple (we finished) here. The past simple shows a sequence of actions; the past perfect connects the actions in some way, emphasising that the earlier action had some kind of influence or effect on the later action.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
It is possible to use the tenses you mention in the same sentence, though of course they can mean different things. I'm not sure what the exact situation and meaning you intend here are, but if I am imagining them correctly, I'd recommend something like 'You have done well and I have noticed your progress' (if that sounds appropriate to you).
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Your sentence 'I have been noticing your progress and found out that you have done well' still sounds a little strange to me because it's not clear to me what you mean. For example, 'have been noticing' implies you started this noticing in the past and are still doing it now, but then 'found out' implies you only discovered progress in the past, yet then the sentence goes on to a present perfect reference, which implies they did well recently -- but is it after the time you stopped finding out? I was imagining a teacher praising their students for their continual progress and so the past simple threw me off. But maybe I've misunderstood?
Without knowing the situation you are describing and what exactly you want to say, it's really difficult to give feedback about verb tenses, since there's quite a range of possible uses and meanings for each. We'll still do our best to help as we have time to do so here, but if you are able to get help from a teacher you can speak with, I think you'd find it much easier.
I hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi kingson,
Our self-access courses, which are available to our subscribers and cost £5.99 per month, are not led by teachers and at least for now, there is nowhere to ask questions in them. So I wouldn't recommend that for this particular purpose.
The British Council English Online courses are online group classes led by teachers. You would be able to ask short questions in such a class, but I'm not sure you'd be able to ask long ones. They are also more expensive.
You can also get one-on-one help from a tutor. The first session costs £1, but I'm afraid I don't know how long it is or how much they cost after that.
You might be able to find an English teacher near where you live whom you could work with -- that would probably be the surest way to get the kind of help you are looking for.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Both sentences are grammatically correct -- well done! I wouldn't use the term 'past future perfect', though.
If you have a specific question about one of them, please let us know.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Reemtb,
The present perfect tells us about something which happened in the past but is still true and still relevant in the present. It describes something in the past from the point of view of the present. Thus, in your example the speaker is describing the woman's whole life up to now.
The past perfect is similar but instead of relating the past to the present, it relates a past event to later past time. Thus, it needs two past time points: past and futher past. The two events must be related in some way. Thus, in your example, the speaker is describing the woman's whole life up to some point in the past. That point is not mentioned in the sentence but would be indicated in the context in which the sentence is used.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Reemtb,
Yes, that would be fine. It would refer to her whole life up to the moment of speaking.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Viktoriano96,
Perfect forms are very much context dependent and it's not possible to say why the past perfect is used here without knowing the broader context in which the sentence appears. In the sentence as written, the past simple is also possible. I would imagine that there is another past time reference somewhere in the text which provided a point from which the speaker/writer is looking back, but this is not clear from the sentence alone.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Shanth,
It's a bit difficult to say which tense to use if we only look at a single sentence. That's because the choice of tense also depends on information in other sentences before or after this one.
But, if we just take this sentence alone, it's not correct to use past perfect because there's only one action in the sentence (conveyed our approval). The past perfect is used when there are two past actions, and we want to show clearly which one happened first (see above for more explanation). So, past simple is the right tense for this sentence.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Fahima mahjabin,
In this sentence, the words 'first' and 'then' show a sequence of actions, and we use the past simple after such adverbs. It would be a little unusual to use a past perfect here, but it is possible -- you could say, for example: 'I had made the salad when I toasted the bread.'
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kyawkyawsoezhu,
Yes, you could say that, though most of the time we'd say 'I toasted', since 'before' makes the sequence clear. If you were my student, I would recommend 'I toasted' there.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Moses Jena,
Yes, the past perfect event must refer to another event or time in the past. If we say Had he closed the shop?, it must refer to another past event (e.g. Had he closed the shop before X happened?). That's the meaning of the structure, and the reason why it can't show a single event.
But, the other past event may or may not be in the same sentence. It could be, for example, in a previous sentence in the conversation.
In this example, the last sentence only shows one action, in the past perfect. But it's clearly referring to closing the shop before the robbery, and readers or listeners would understand it as referring to that rather than being a single, isolated action.
If there's no reference to another past event, one of these options should be used.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
In time clauses that refer to the future, we typically use present tense forms (usually the present simple, but also the present perfect) to refer to the future action -- see the first paragraph of the Talking about the future section on this page.
In this case, the present perfect puts a little more emphasis on the action being finished (in the future), but otherwise there is no difference in meaning.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Good, I'm glad. The grammar in this sentence is the same as the other one you asked about earlier. There is a very slight emphasis on 'you' finishing the work, but basically 'when you have finished the work' is another way of saying 'when the work is finished' (or 'has been finished').
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team