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 muhaos,
We use the past perfect when it is important to make clear that one action was before another action in the past. In both of your examples this is the case.
We'd finished all the water before we were halfway up the mountain.
> finishing the water happens before reaching halfway up the mountain
They left before I'd spoken to them.
The meaning here can be expressed as follows: When they left I had (still) not spoken with them.
> not speaking to them happens (doesn't happen) before leaving
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
I'm confused with the use of the Past Simple and Past Perfect in one sentence in some cases.
For example 'They had left the country before their daughter was born' I understand that first they left, then the daughter was born. But here ''Mum phoned before she'd heard the news'' why the firs part is not in the past perfect, she first phoned, then heard
Hi polinanana,
It's because the two sentences you mention have different meanings of the past perfect. In the first sentence, the past perfect shows the earlier of two actions, as you explained.
The second sentence is different. The meaning here is an undone or incomplete action (not which action happened earlier). Quoting from the page above:
Your sentence sentence means that at the time of the past simple action (the time that Mum phoned), the other action ("hearing the news") was not done or not complete. Unlike your first sentence, the past perfect does not indicate the order of events in time.
It's also possible to rephrase the second sentence with the "earlier action" meaning of the past perfect: "Mum had phoned (past perfect) before she heard (past simple) the news". This is also grammatical.
I hope that helps to understand this tricky area of grammar!
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
I can't understand the difference between these two.
They had died.
They had been died.
Could you explain this grammar to me?
had + been + adjective
Hi xaudxd,
Actually, only sentence 1 is correct. The word "died" is a past simple verb, not an adjective. (The adjective is "dead".)
The verb "die" means to stop living. It's important to understand that "die" is not something that can be done to another person. Instead, for the meaning of "make somebody stop living", we need to use a different verb, e.g. "kill" - "They had been killed (in the accident)" or "They had been killed (by the attacker)".
Sentences using the past perfect are only used for particular grammatical meanings (see the page above). Other structures/tenses are also possible, e.g. "They were killed" (past simple).
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Sorry. I made a mistake.
I don't understand the sentence below.
They had been dead.
past perfect + adjective
this is the link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/08/04/yale-organex-dead-pig…
When exactly do we use "past perfect + adjective" structure?
Hello xaudxd,
There are many situations when you could use 'had been' + an adjective: 'they had been happy for many years, but then disaster struck', 'the building had been modern when it was first built, but after 70 years ...', etc.
In this case, the pigs died and were dead for an hour (at a particular time in this experiment -- the time when the scientists applied the OrganEx system), and then the pigs were treated. They had been dead for an hour and then showed some signs of life.
Does that make sense?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Thank you.
Understanding the idea behind this structure is quite challenging for me. As far as I know, my native language does not have a similar structure. My aim is to find a clear guideline on how to use this structure. Unfortunately, there aren't many online resources available on this topic. My question after reading your explanation is, "Why didn't the author use the sentence "The pigs were dead for an hour" instead of the sentence "The pigs had been dead for an hour"?" I researched a lot on the internet and asked a lot of questions. I received no accurate or complete response from any of them. I cannot comprehend the following structures.
1) Have/has been + adjective or noun
2) had been + adjective or noun
A sentence such as "He has been a teacher" is unclear to me. What are the differences between "He has been a teacher" , "He had been a teacher", and "He was a teacher."?
She is happy. (She is happy now) => The verb "is" refers to the present. So, at the moment, she is happy.
The sentence "She was happy" refers to the past. So, she is not happy at the moment.
It is unclear to me what the following sentences mean.
"She has been happy" and "She had been happy"
"They had been dead" and "They have been dead"
Hi xaudxd,
I see! I'll just summarise the two examples again here.
The first thing to say is that both are grammatical. It's not a case of one being correct and the other incorrect.
The past perfect (example 1) is used to show that the action is in some way meaningfully connected to another action. In other words, there is some implied meaning from the two connected actions. In this sentence, the implied meaning is amazement or astonishment at what the scientists did. Making their hearts beat again is amazing or remarkable in the context of the previous action (they had been dead for an hour). Here's another example: "I went to the bakery, but the last piece of bread had been sold." Here, the implication is that I actually wanted to buy bread. It's only an implication - it's not explicitly stated. You may like to have a look at the examples on the page above and try to see if it's clear what is implied in each one.
Example 2 uses the past simple for both actions. This shows a sequence - action 1 happened, and then action 2 happened. The fact that the two actions are put together may, of course, imply something, even without using the past perfect. (In this example, I think it still implies amazement.) But the point is that this meaningful connection is not necessarily the case with two past simple actions, for example:
These actions occur in sequence, but they are not connected. It would not make sense to say "I had finished my report ..." (past perfect) here, because my finishing the report has no connection to John's action.
So, coming back to your question, why did the writer use example 1 and not 2? I would say that example 2 sounds like it's simply reporting two things that happened in a factual way, like a record of the events. In fact, if this was a record of the events, example 2 would probably be preferred. In comparison, example 1 sounds more like it's not just reporting what happened but also explaining why it's interesting or amazing. I note that this example is the headline of the article, and the purpose of a headline is to gain the reader's attention and make them interested to read the full article. For that reason, it's probably a more effective headline than example 2. As you can see, there's a lot to consider to explain the choice of structure.
I hope that helps! For your other questions, our Present perfect page has some useful information comparing the present perfect and past simple. If you have more questions, feel free to post them here or on other relevant pages. But if possible, questions that are less broad are easier for us to answer in the comment section, which has limited space. Thanks!
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team