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
Thank you, Peter.
What about this one?
- Katerina Panos got married to Darwin Deason in 2008, and they'd spent 11 years together by the time they divorced in 2019.
Hello again Tony,
That's perfectly fine.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thank you very much.
Hello,
In the sentence Tim visited his parents before he went shopping could we also say Tim had visited or had been visiting his parents before he went shopping as the action of visiting happened before that of going shopping?
Thanks
Hello Cilicia,
Yes, that is possible and correct, though the sentence with past simple is also correct.
We typically use the past perfect when the order of events is important or because we want to emphasise it in some way. We might use this sentence (with the past perfect form) to begin a story, for example, when we are setting the scene for something that happened after he left his parents' house and before he arrived at the shops.
Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Hello,
It still hadn't rained at the beginning of May.
It still didn't rain at the beginning of May.
Can both sentences be grammatically correct?
Hello Aung Qui,
Yes, both sentences are grammatically correct.
The past simple is used when we are describing actions individually, often in sequence:
The past perfect is used when we are looking back from a point in the past to an earlier point in the past and want to connect the events in some way:
Thus, both of your sentences are grammatically correct. Whether they work in the larger context I cannot say as I don't know the larger context.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thank you so much.
Good morning.
Could you clarify the following for me:
1-Is the sentence below correct?
2-Isn't it correct to remove the "how long = for three months" because the sentence is in "past perfect" which gives us:
On the 20th of July, I'd worked here.
-The sentence under discussion is: On the 20th of July, I'd worked here for three months.
Hello midohada,
Perfect aspect is retrospective, meaning that it looks back from a point in time to an earlier time. In the case of the past perfect this means looking back from the past into an earlier past.
In your example the time phrase is needed as it connects the past (working here) with an earlier past (the previous three months). Without this time reference there is no reason to use the perfect aspect and we would use a past tense:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team