Past perfect tense in English
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This chapter will discuss past perfect tense in English. This tense is used to indicate that an action in the past occurred before another action also in the past.
The past perfect is formed with the past simple of the auxiliary verb 'to have' and the past participle:
to have + past participle
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The past participle of regular verbs is formed by adding '-ed' to the infinitive of the verb.
The past participle of irregular verbs have different endings. Here are some examples:
How the past perfect tense is formed, depends on whether the sentence is:
Structure: Subject + auxiliary verb 'to have' in past (had) + past participle + rest of sentence
Subject | Past form of 'to have' |
---|---|
I | had |
You | had |
He / she / it | had |
We | had |
You | had |
They | had |
Structure: Subject + negative form of auxiliary verb 'to have' in the past (had not) + past participle + rest of sentence
Subject | Negative form of 'to have' in past |
---|---|
I | had not |
You | had not |
He / she / it | had not |
We | had not |
You | had not |
They | had not |
Structure: Auxiliary verb 'to have' in past (had) + subject + past participle + rest of sentence + question mark
The past perfect tense in English is used to make clear that one event occurred before the other event in the past. A past perfect sentence usually consists of 2 actions that are described, one of which is in the past simple tense.
Use | Example |
---|---|
For actions in the past that occured before another action also in the past. |
|
Duration before something in the past. |
|
Actions that have started in the past and continued to a specific point in the past. |
|
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