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 Andi,
Don't worry about including your email address! I just wanted to explain why we deleted it. Thanks also for explaining what you think the answers are. This helps us understand what our users are thinking and give more specific answers.
In this case, there's actually more than one answer for some of the gaps; which one is correct depends on the context and on how old the little girl is now. If, for example, this little girl is now 12 and her parents were thinking these things when she was 2, then the past simple or past perfect forms would be correct -- more specifically, for 1, 'always thought' or 'had always thought'; for 2, 'learnt' or 'had learnt'; and for 3 'tried' or 'had tried'.
There is very little difference between the past simple and past perfect forms if this is the situation, but the past perfect would suggest some other point of time in the past (not mentioned in this sentence, but understood from another sentence or the general context) that these events occurred before.
I hope this helps you make sense of it. Please let us know if you have any follow-up questions.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Andi,
Most of the time, using the past perfect is a choice, not a requirement. The 'cause/effect relation' that you describe doesn't impose the use of the past perfect in this case, either -- it's a decision the writer could make to use it. In a sentence like this, the past perfect can be used to clarify the order of the events, but it is not necessary to do this.
The sentence you ask about is a good example of this. If the writer or speaker wanted to make it very clear that their daughter learned to read early and that this is what made their parents think she was clever, then 'had learned to read early' would be a good choice. But it could be that this is not a particularly important point, or the writer might think that it's obvious that first the girl did something extraordinary and after that her parents noticed it, and so could use the past simple form. In this case, the reader would likely still suppose that the reading came first, though it would be less clearly indicated.
Hope this helps you make sense of it.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Andi,
I don't think I said that those forms were not possible, but rather that other forms were more common. In fact, these forms are possible here in a context where we wanted to emphasise that, for example, they had these thoughts again and again over a period of time. If you follow the link, you'll see a detailed explanation of the past continuous form, and also links to explanations of other verb forms. If you have a close look at them, I think this will help you understand the different possibilities here.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello vanshh03,
The past simple requires a definite past time, but this can be implicit in the context and not explicitly stated in the sentence. Both sentences are grammatically correct in terms of how they are formed, but we can't say more without know the context in which they are used.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello sisi,
When we talk about a series of consecutive actions in the past, we usually use the past simple for each of the actions. That is why 'made' is the correct answer here.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Yes, the sentence 'I'll let you know how the meeting went' communicates the idea that you explain. The context makes the time period that 'went' refers to clear.
Good job!
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Sorry if that was confusing. What I meant was that the context makes the time period clear. In other words, the time period that the verb 'went' refers to is clear in the context of the sentence.
Hope that helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Maria Don Chandy,
I'm afraid I don't understand the instructions for this. If you are supposed to change the verb to a past perfect form, then you change the verb 'are' into the past perfect ('had been'): 'We had been taught honesty'.
By the way, the verbs 'are taught' and 'had been taught' are passive forms.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Loc Duc,
It's true that the past perfect shows one event was earlier in the past than another, but there also needs to be a connection between the two events. For example:
Here, the past simple is used for each action as there is no connection between the events. They form a sequence but they do not affect or cause one another.
This example is different. The thief escaping is clearly related to the police's arrival, as they were hoping to catch the thief. In other words, the escape changed the situation for the police in a key way. Thus, the past perfect is used.
I hope that helps to clarify it for you.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Zuzanna,
It's a question of preference, I think. Both forms are grammatically possible.
The past perfect emphasises a connection between the two events and would probably be used if the writer wanted to talk about how not having their grandma had changed their life, for example.
The past simple describes two events in the past, but does not necessarily mean that they are connected or influence one another.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Hatchaitchi88,
It's a good question :) Both the past perfect (hadn't called) and the past simple (didn't call) are correct here.
The action of calling for help happened before the ship sinking, so the past perfect makes sense.
But, speakers often simplify by using the past simple instead of the past perfect, if the order of the events is clear in the rest of the sentence. In this situation, it's logical that not calling for help would happen before the ship sinking. It says because the engineer didn't call for help ... . 'Because' shows what caused something, and a cause must logically come before the effect. So, that's why the past perfect can be simplified to the past simple here.
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Hatchaitchi88,
Yes, it means I had expected here. Actually, expect is used in both simple and continuous tenses, and both make sense in this sentence.
The continuous form emphasises that 'expecting' had some duration (i.e. it went on for some time).
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello freudian99,
That's mostly correct. I'd recommend 'hadn't brought' for the third gap, 'tried' for the fourth, and 'wasn't' for the sixth.
Good luck on your test!
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Yigido,
These are good questions :) Yes, if the past perfect is used, there must be a second past action or time. But, it could be somewhere else in the conversation, i.e. a previous or later sentence. It doesn't need to be in the same sentence. For example:
In this example, the past perfect (we had already seen the film) shows that that action happened some time before the other past actions.
If the narrative is in the present, then we use the present perfect.
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Yigido,
Yes, we do use the present simple after when. But it's not the only option. We can use other tenses too, depending on the timeframe of the actions in the sentence. Here, the action (our guests had all left) must have happened before the other past action (We had a good rest), so that's why the past perfect is used here.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Amit01,
It is grammatically correct except for one small thing: instead of 'what is it', the correct form is 'what it is'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Amit01,
We use the past perfect when there two past actions, and we want to show which one happened first (i.e. earlier). In this sentence, had played a major role happened before liberation in 1971, so that's why it's in the past perfect.
But, we often simplify it and use the past simple instead of the past perfect. We do that if the sentence clearly shows which action happened first. Here, it's quite clear that played a major role happened before liberation - because that makes sense logically as a cause and effect, and also played a major role is mentioned first in the sentence (i.e. the actions are in the same order in the sentence as the order that they happened). So, the past simple would be fine here too!
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
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