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Past Perfect 10th Grade

The document discusses the Past Perfect tense, which is used to talk about actions that were completed before something else in the past. It provides the structure of the Past Perfect as subject + had + past participle. Examples are given such as "I had finished my work" and "You had stopped before me." The document explains that the Past Perfect expresses one past action occurring before another past action. It provides examples of using the Past Perfect to talk about completed actions in reported speech.

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64 views

Past Perfect 10th Grade

The document discusses the Past Perfect tense, which is used to talk about actions that were completed before something else in the past. It provides the structure of the Past Perfect as subject + had + past participle. Examples are given such as "I had finished my work" and "You had stopped before me." The document explains that the Past Perfect expresses one past action occurring before another past action. It provides examples of using the Past Perfect to talk about completed actions in reported speech.

Uploaded by

mishell
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Past Perfect

The Past Perfect tense is quite an easy tense to understand and to use. This tense
talks about the "past in the past".

In this lesson we look at the structure and use of the Past Perfect tense, followed


by a quiz to check your understanding.

How do we make the Past Perfect tense?


The structure of the Past Perfect tense is:

subjec + auxiliary have + main verb


t

conjugated in Past Simple  

had past participle

The auxilary verb (have) is conjugated in the Past Simple: had

The main verb is invariable in past participle form: -ed (or irregular)

For negative sentences we insert not between the auxiliary verb and the main
verb.
For question sentences, we exchange the subject and the auxiliary verb.

Look at these example sentences with the Past Perfect tense:

main
  Subject auxiliary verb   verb  

+ I had   finished my work.

+ You had   stopped before me.

- She had not gone to school.

- We had not left.  

? Had you   arrived?  

? Had they   eaten dinner?

Contraction with Past Perfect

When we use the Past Perfect in speaking, we often contract the subject and the
auxiliary verb. We also sometimes do this in informal writing:

I had I'd

you had you'd


he had he'd
she had she'd
it had it'd

we had we'd

they they'd
had

 I'd eaten already.


 They'd gone home.

In negative sentences, we may contract the auxiliary verb and "not":

 I hadn't finished my meal.


 Anthony hadn't had a day off for months.
The 'd contraction is also used for the auxiliary verb would. For example, we'd can
mean:

 We had, OR
 We would
But usually the main verb is in a different form, for example:

 We had arrived (past participle)
 We would arrive (base)
It is always clear from the context.

How do we use the Past Perfect tense?


The Past Perfect tense expresses action in the past before another action in
the past. This is the past in the past. For example:

 The train left at 9am. We arrived at 9:15am. When we arrived, the train had
left.
The train had left when we arrived.

Past present future

Train leaves in past at 9:00    

     

9:00 9:15  

We arrive in past at 9:15    

Look at some more examples:

 I wasn't hungry. I had just eaten.


 They were hungry. They had not eaten for five hours.
 I didn't know who he was. I had never seen him before.
 "Mary wasn't at home when I arrived." / "Really? Where had she gone?"

You can sometimes think of the Past Perfect tense like the Present Perfect tense,
but instead of the time being now the time is before.

  have    
done
→

had      
done
→
  past present future

For example, imagine that you arrive at the station at 9:15am. The stationmaster
says to you:

 "You are too late. The train has left."

Later, you tell your friends:

 "We were too late. The train had left."

We often use the Past Perfect in reported speech after verbs like: said, told, asked,
thought, wondered

Look at these examples:

 He told us that the train had left.


 I thought I had met her before, but I was wrong.
 He explained that he had closed the window because of the rain.
 I wondered if I had been there before.
 I asked them why they had not finished.

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