Past Perfect

Past Perfect Grammar

Sub-topics: Past participle (verbs), Time expressions

We use the past perfect to describe an acction that ocurred before a specific time in the past. Past perfect is used to talk about an action which happened BEFORE another action in the PAST.

Example: Lenny had done his homework.

or

Lenny'd done his homework.

Contractions:

I had = I'd

You had = You'd

She had = She'd

He had = He'd

It had = It'd

They had = They'd

We had = We'd

We can use a timeline to describe the actions:

We need to identify the order of the sentences between simple past and past pasticiple. It's very easy, the PAST PARTICIPLE always happened first and SIMPLE PAST is the second one.

The time expressions that are usually used to identfy both sentences are:

Before = 2. Simple Past - 1. Past Participle
After = 1. Past Participle - 2. Simple Past

Now, we have to form sentences using the timeline examples. Past perfect is formed by:

After + Subject + Aux. Had + Past participle (Verb) + , + Subject + Past simple (verb) + Complement

 Before + Subject + Past simple (verb) + , + Subject + Aux. Had + Past participle (Verb) + Complement

Examples.

1. After I had woken up, I had breakfast. or Before I had breakfast, I had woken up.
2. After I had had breakfast, I took the bus. or Before I took the bus, I had had breakfast.
3. After I had taken the bus, I arrived to the University. or Before I arrived to the University, I had taken the bus.
4. After had arrived to the University, english class started. or Before english class started, I had arrived to the Univeristy.

For the negative form in past participle, we use "HAD NOT" or "HADN'T" and we have the option to use the time expresion "YET" :

Example: Lenny hadn't done his homework yet. or Lenny hadn't yet done his homework.

MGMS 🌈🌸🌸🌸

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"Had had = it looks strange, it sounds strange, but that's the correct form to say it"