Past perfect
The earlier of two past actions: when I joined the call, the meeting had already started.
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When we are already talking about the past and want to go one step further back, we use the past perfect. It shows that one action happened before another past action or past moment. The form is had + the past participle.
Form: had + past participle
Had is the same for every person. The short form is 'd, and the negative is hadn't.
Subject | Positive | Negative |
|---|---|---|
all persons | I had left, she had left | I had not left |
short form | I'd left, she'd left | she hadn't left |
- When I got to the office, the meeting had started.
- She hadn't seen the email, so she didn't know about the change.
- Incorrect: I had went home before the storm started.
- Correct: I had gone home before the storm started.After had, use the past participle (gone), not the past simple (went).
'd can be had or would. Look at the next word: I'd finished (had + past participle), I'd like (would + infinitive).
Questions and short answers
Put had before the subject.
Question | Yes | No |
|---|---|---|
Had you met him before? | Yes, I had. | No, I hadn't. |
Had the train left? | Yes, it had. | No, it hadn't. |
- Had they eaten when you arrived? No, they hadn't.
- Where had she worked before she joined us?
The earlier past
Use the past simple for the main events of a story. Use the past perfect to go back to something that happened before them.
- I opened my bag and saw that I had left my wallet at home.
- Stefan was nervous because he had never given a talk before.
- We couldn't get a table. We hadn't booked.
The tense changes the order of events. Compare:
- When I joined the call, the manager started her talk.
(I joined, and then she started. I heard all of it.)
- When I joined the call, the manager had started her talk.
(She started before I joined. I missed the beginning.)
- Incorrect: When I got to the bakery, they already sold all the bread.
- Correct: When I got to the bakery, they had already sold all the bread.The bread was sold first. The earlier action takes the past perfect.
After, before and when
After + past perfect shows that the first action was complete before the second one began. With before, the past perfect usually goes in the other part of the sentence.
- After she had read the contract, she signed it.
- I had just sat down when the doorbell rang.
- He had lived in three countries before he was twenty.
With after and before the order is already clear from the word itself, so the past simple is also correct: After she read the contract, she signed it.
By the time
By the time + past simple means "at or before that moment". For an action that was already complete at that moment, the other verb is in the past perfect.
- By the time we got to the airport, the gate had closed.
- By the time I was thirty, I had changed jobs five times.
- Incorrect: By the time the taxi arrived, we have packed everything.
- Correct: By the time the taxi arrived, we had packed everything.The story is in the past, so the earlier action is had + past participle, not have.
Already, just, never, for and since
The words that go with the present perfect also go with the past perfect, in the same position.
- The shop had already closed.
- I had never flown before that trip.
- They had been friends for years when they started the company.
- It was my first visit. I hadn't been there before.
Not for the simple past
The past perfect needs a second past moment to look back from. Don't use it for one finished action, and don't use it for every action in a list.
- Incorrect: Yesterday I had gone to the dentist's.
- Correct: Yesterday I went to the dentist's.There is only one past time here, so the past simple is enough.
- Incorrect: I had got up, had had breakfast and had left the house.
- Correct: I got up, had breakfast and left the house.Actions told in the order they happened take the past simple.