Past perfect tense – English grammar

Let’s start with an example of the past perfect in context:

Yesterday, Mark was tired because he had walked to work.
(The bold text is the past perfect)

In the example, there are 2 actions / events from the past.

The 2 actions occur in this order:

1. Mark walks
2. Mark is tired

We use the past perfect to describe the first action or event from the past.

In this English grammar lesson, you will learn:

• the form of the past perfect tense
• the use and meaning of the past perfect (there are other uses)

 

Form

Affirmative form

full form:
subject + “had” + past participle

contracted form:
subject + “‘d” + past participle

Full form	Contracted form
I had walked	I‘d walked
you had walked	you‘d walked
he had walked	he‘d walked
she had walked	she‘d walked
it had walked	it‘d walked
we had walked	we‘d walked
you had walked	you‘d walked
they had walked	they‘d walked

Negative form

negative full form

subject + “had not” + past participle

I had not walked

you had not walked

he had not walked

she had not walked

it had not walked

we had not walked

you had not walked

they had not walked

negative contracted forms

There are 2 choices:

subject + “hadn’t” + past participle
or
subject + “‘d not” + past participle

negative contracted form 1	negative contracted form 2
I hadn’t walked	I‘d not walked
you hadn’t walked	you‘d not walked
he hadn’t walked	he‘d not walked
she hadn’t walked	she‘d not walked
it hadn’t walked	it‘d not walked
we hadn’t walked	we‘d not walked
you hadn’t walked	you‘d not walked
they hadn’t walked	they‘d not walked

 

 

Question form

“Had” + subject +  past participle  .. ?

Full form
Had I walked…. ?
Had you walked…. ?
Had he walked…. ?
Had she walked…. ?
Had it walked…. ?
Had we walked…. ?
Had you walked…. ?
Had they walked…. ?

Question form with “question words”

We can use several “question words” to form a question with the past perfect:

what
where
why      +    “Had”  +  subject  +   past participle   .. ?
who
how

Examples:

What had he eaten?

Where had she been?
How had he lost weight?

Past participles

What is the past participle? How do we form a past participle?

Regular verbs

The basic rule for regular verbs is to add –ed to the base form:

Examples:
clean   >  cleaned
walk   >   walked

Irregular verbs

base form	past participle
be	been
break	broken
buy	bought
choose	chosen
come	come
do	done
drink	drunk
eat	eaten
go	gone
have	had
make	made
run	run
say	said
see	seen
think	thought

For all the rules and exceptions for forming the past participle for regular and irregular verbs, use a good dictionary.

Uses and meaning of the past perfect

Actions in the past before other actions

We use the past perfect to describe an action in the past before another action in the past.

Examples:

When she arrived at the station, the train had already left.

Mark was happy because he had found a new job.
She passed the exam because she had studied hard.

Past perfect in reported speech (indirect speech)

In English, there are 2 methods to say what somebody has said:
1) Direct speech. The exact words that the person said. It is from the perspective of the person speaking.
2) Reported speech (indirect). We report what a person said using our words. It is from our perspective.

Direct speech example:
Mark said, “I like chocolate.”

Indirect speech example:
Mark said that he liked chocolate.

If the reporting verb of the speech is in the past, then often we change the tenses of the reported speech.

Direct speech tense	Reported speech tense
Present simple	Past simple
Present perfect	Past perfect
Past simple	Past perfect

As you can see from the above table, if the reporting verb is in the past, then we use the past perfect in the reported speech if the present perfect OR past simple was used in the original direct speech.

Here are 4 examples:

Example 1:

Direct speech:
Mark said, “Jane has gone to London.” (present perfect)
Reported speech:
Mark said that Jane had gone to London. (past perfect)

Example 2:

Direct speech:
Mark said, “I have lost my key.” (present perfect)
Reported speech:
Mark said that he had lost his key. (past perfect)

Example 3:

Direct speech:
Mark said, “I bought a car.” (past simple)
Reported speech:
Mark said that he had bought a car. (past perfect)

Example 4:

Direct speech:
Mark said, “We enjoyed our meal.” (past simple)
Reported speech:
Mark said that they had enjoyed their meal. (past perfect)

Past perfect in conditionals

We use the past perfect to describe an unreal or imaginary situation in the past. This is known as the third conditional.

Examples:
If he had walked to work, he would have been late.
If you had invited me to the party, I would have come.
If I had had more money, I would have bought you a watch.

Look at the last example again. The first “had” is the auxiliary verb. The second “had” is the main verb. It is the past participle of the verb “have”.

More English lessons

Private online English lessons
The ing form of English verbs
The verb “to BE” – English irregular verbs
Irregular verbs in English
Past simple tense in English
Present perfect verb tense in English

English video lesson