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 Nabeelah,
It's fine to use the past perfect for multiple actions so long as there is a later past time reference point. The past perfect has the meaning of before then, so there must be another point in the past before which the events take place. For example, your sentence without any context would not make sense as there is no later point of reference. Of course, in context there probably would be:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Both forms are possible. When we shift the tense back in reported speech it does not mean that the action is in the past.
For example:
Direct speech:
Reported speech:
Both options are grammatically correct. The first sentence tells us that she liked me at the time she said it. It does not tell us if this is still true or not. The second tells us that she liked me at the time she said it and that it is still true today.
In your example, the context within the sentence (until he came) already tells us that the action is still true, so whether or not the tense is present (need) or past (needed) makes no difference.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Dear Peter,
Can we say this in the following form?
"Jesus said we needed to do this until he comes." (here we know that Jesus has not come yet). So can we say "until he comes" (present tense) in this sentence with a past tense (Jesus said we needed) in it?
Hope, you understand what I want to know.
Regards,
kingson
Hello kingson,
The sentence is grammatically fine. After 'until' we use a present form to talk about the future, just as we do with 'if' and 'when').
In the first part of the sentence you have reported a speech construction, and there are two choices with regard to tense:
The first option makes it clear that it was true when Jesus said it and is still true now; the second option tells us that it was true when Jesus said it but does not tell us whether or not it is still true now. Another example may clarify:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello _princess_,
Both are possible. The choice of which to use depends upon the context and the speaker's intention.
When we want to show a straightforward sequence of events we use the past simple, as in your first example. When it is important for some reason to emphasise that one action came before another, or when the later event is in some way dependent on or changed by the earlier event, we can use the past perfect with a past simple, as in your second example.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello _princess_
As with the other sentences you asked about, it really depends on the context. Without any context or statement after it (e.g. 'He'd been practising grammar for two hours when his teacher told him he needed to study vocabulary'), the second one would be quite strange. The the first one, on the other hand, could make sense in many different situations.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Normally, we do not use modal verbs in both halves of a conditional sentence, but it is possible when we want to make the condition more tentative. In this case, the sense of 'If you would only give us...' is 'If you were willing to give us...'
You can see this used sometimes to add politeness:
'Would' is the past form (used to show an unreal or unlikely action or event) of 'will', but that does not mean it is not a modal verb. In this case, it is both.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Both sentences are possible. The verb form in the first clause is passive and the auxiliary verb is omitted, which means we do not know if it is a present simple passive or a past simple passive. That is why both will and would are possible:
The first sentences describes a likely or plausible condition and its result. The second sentence describes a condition which the speaker sees as unlikely or impossible.
Both will and would are modal verbs.
The difference between the sentences is one of plausibility or likelihood, not politeness.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
Modal verbs are one kind of auxiliary verb, which is what I think you mean by 'ancilliary verb'. You can see a list of auxiliary verbs in English here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_verb#List_of_auxiliaries_in_English
You can read about the three moods in English (indicative, subjunctive and imperative), as well about how modal verbs relate to the topic, here:
https://grammarianism.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/mood-and-modality-what-is-the-difference/
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson
The second one is not correct. The first is correct, but a little strange -- I would say 'if' instead of 'once'. With 'once', I would want to say 'Once you have it, you will start using it'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson
You might hear the first, but the second one is better.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Manar Ragheb,
There is a difference in meaning:
In the first sentence (had cooked) the cooking is finished before you got up.
In the second sentence (cooked) the cooking began when you got up.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson,
I would recommend you use 'about', which is the most commonly used preposition in cases such as these. 'of' is not incorrect, it's just a bit archaic and would make you sound strange in most contexts.
By the way, both of the questions are incorrect in standard British (or American) English: questions in the present simple use the auxiliary verb 'do': 'What do people say about me?'.
'Forgive us of our sins' is another archaic form; it means the same thing as 'forgive us our sins' and is part of a passage from the Christian Bible that is commonly known as the Lord's Prayer.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson
If you haven't already, the first thing I'd recommend is that you carefully study example sentences in the dictionary. As you can see there, this verb has quite a few different meanings. 'Call me', by the far the most common of the three you ask about, can therefore mean quite a few different things which you can see perfectly well in the dictionary.
It's difficult for me to imagine all possible situations in which one might say 'Call to me', but in general I'd say it is a way of giving instructions to someone to get my attention at some point in time.
'Call unto me' is not really used outside of very specific contexts any more. You might find it in a passage from an older translation of the Bible, for example, but it would be quite unusual to hear or read it in most places nowadays.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Kingson,
If the girl works in the office now then a present simple is the most obvious choice:
Of course, this does not tell us that the girl worked in the office when your friend got married, though that would be the most likely way to understand the sentence. If you needed to make it explicit, then you would need to add the information separately:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Kingson,
The sentence is perfectly correct. It describes an action in the near past which has a present result (choosing) and provides a completed past action (being honest) which provided the motivation for this action.
The sentence has two clauses which are joined by a subordinating conjunction (since). The conjunction expresses a causal relatioship in a similar way to 'because'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Donald Harrison,
Both sentences are possible; which is appropriate depends upon what you want to say.
The distinctions between indefinite, definite and zero article for generic meaning are very subtle. I wrote a long answer a while ago describing them. You can find that answer here:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/comment/140263#comment-140263
I think if you read that explanation you should be able to see the difference between your two sentences.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson
'I thought he had finished the work' is grammatically correct. With this sentence, you are expressing your own thinking about the work being finished -- it is irrelevant whether the work is actually finished or not.
Does that answer your question? If not, could you please rephrase it, as I'm not sure I've understood it completely.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lexeus,
The first sentence is fine. There is no need to express everything in the past perfect, and it makes the sentence very clunky.
The past perfect in your example only expresses one relationship: looking back on the act of telling from the perspective of the moment of recall. The rest is not directly linked. In other words, Tom recalls the telling, not the feeling, the visiting or the seeing.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello govegan
We are currently revising the Intermediate grammar section and this page will be changing quite soon. It's difficult to speculate on the intentions of the people involved and although it's more likely than not that washing the cat was unintentional, I agree that the sentence shows poor taste and so I have changed it. Thanks very much for pointing it out to us and I'm sorry about that.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello kingson
The first one is correct since the 'when' clause makes it clear that the sentence is only about the past. I would recommend taking out the comma, though.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello mara,
This is a similar example to the earlier one you posted. As I said in that answer, we sometimes use the past perfect for actions which are not completed.
For example:
In this sentence the sequence of the actions is clear: first the film started and then Thomas arrived. Both actions happened.
However, if we want to talk about something which did not happen, or which was not complete, then we use the past perfect with before:
Here we understand that one action (Thomas arriving) did not happen, or was not complete.
It may help to think about this as a structure related to what is sometimes called the third conditional. The past perfect is describing something which is not real, or not complete, just as in a past hypothetical conditional sentence.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team