When should I use the Past Perfect Simple?
1: A finished action before a second point in the past.
When we arrived, the film had started (= first the film started, then we arrived).
We usually use the past perfect to make it clear which action happened first. Maybe we are
already talking about something in the past and we want to mention something else that is
further back in time. This is often used to explain or give a reason for something in the past
I'd eaten dinner so I wasn't hungry.
It had snowed in the night, so the bus didn't arrive.
Read:
Sarah went to a party last week. Paul went to the
party too, but they didn't see each other. Paul left the
party at 10.30 and Sarah arrived at 11 o'clock. So:
When Sarah arrived at the party, Paul wasn't there.
He had gone home.
Had gone is the past perfect (simple):
Form
l/we/they/you had seen
he/she/it had finished
The past perfect simple is had + past participle (gone/seen/finished etc).
- Sometimes we talk about something that happened in the past:
Sarah arrived at the party.
Examples:
O When we got home last night, we found that somebody had broken into the flat.
Karen didn't want to go to the cinema with us because she'd already seen the movie.
At first I thought I'd done the right thing, but I soon realised that I'd made a big mistake.
For the negative just add 'not':
I had not been (I hadn't been)
You had not gone (you hadn't gone)
She had not met (she hadn't met)
And to make a 'yes / no' question put 'had' before the subject:
Had I come?
Had you eaten?
Had she gone?
Had it rained?
For 'wh' questions put the question word at the beginning:
When had I come?
Why had you eaten?
Where had she gone?
Key words: after, before
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