Simple Past Or Past Perfect

The past perfect, also called the pluperfect, is a verb tense used to lớn talk about actions that were completed before some point in the past.

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We were shocked lớn discover that someone had graffitied “Tootles was here” on our front door.We were relieved that Tootles had used washable paint.

The past perfect tense is for talking about something that happened before something else. Imagine waking up one morning & stepping outside to grab the newspaper. On your way back in, you notice a mysterious message scrawled across your front door: Tootles was here. When you’re telling this story khổng lồ your friends later, how would you describe this moment? You might say something like:


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In addition lớn feeling indignant on your behalf, your friends will also be able to lớn understand that Tootles graffitied the door at some point in the past before the moment this morning when you saw his handiwork, because you used the past perfect tense khổng lồ describe the misdeed.

The Past Perfect Formula

The formula for the past perfect tense is had + . It doesn’t matter if the subject is singular or plural; the formula doesn’t change.

When khổng lồ Use the Past Perfect

So what’s the difference between past perfect & simple past? When you’re talking about some point in the past và want to reference an sự kiện that happened even earlier, using the past perfect allows you lớn convey the sequence of the events. It’s also clearer và more specific. Consider the difference between these two sentences:
We were relieved that Tootles used washable paint.We were relieved that Tootles had used washable paint.

It’s a subtle difference, but the first sentence doesn’t tie Tootles’s act of using washable paint khổng lồ any particular moment in time; readers might interpret it as “We were relieved that Tootles was in the habit of using washable paint.” In the second sentence, the past perfect makes it clear that you’re talking about a specific instance of using washable paint.

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Another time khổng lồ use the past perfect is when you are expressing a condition & a result:

The past perfect is used in the part of the sentence that explains the condition (the if-clause).

Most often, the reason lớn write a verb in the past perfect tense is to lớn show that it happened before other actions in the same sentence that are described by verbs in the simple past tense. Writing an entire paragraph with every verb in the past perfect tense is unusual.

When Not lớn Use the Past Perfect

Don’t use the past perfect when you’re not trying to lớn convey some sequence of events. If your friends asked what you did after you discovered the graffiti, they would be confused if you said:

They’d likely be wondering what happened next because using the past perfect implies that your kích hoạt of cleaning the door occurred before something else happened, but you don’t say what that something else is. The “something else” doesn’t always have khổng lồ be explicitly mentioned, but context needs to lớn make it clear. In this case there’s no context, so the past perfect doesn’t make sense.

How khổng lồ Make the Past Perfect Negative

Making the past perfect negative is simple! Just insert not between had & .
We looked for witnesses, but the neighbors had not seen Tootles in the act.If Tootles had not included his own name in the message, we would have no idea who was behind it.

How to lớn Ask a Question

The formula for asking a question in the past perfect tense is had + + .

Common Regular Verbs in the Past Perfect Tense

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Common Irregular Verbs in the Past Perfect Tense

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*The past participle of “to get” is “gotten” in American English. In British English, the past participle is “got.”

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