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
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