Past Perfect

Past perfect

The past perfect tense indicates that an action was completed or finished at some point in the past before something else happened.

We use the past perfect in these cases:

• For an action that happened before another action in the past

I had not studied Italian before I move to Italy.

She said that she had bought that bag in the mall.

We had met before you introduced us.

• For an action that happened before a specific time in the past

I had never played the guitar until yesterday.

He had fallen asleep before eleven o’clock.

They had never met until the last weekend.

• For stative verbs that started in the past and continued up to some point in the past.

My mom had wanted a bag, but she received a jacket.

We had lived in Chile ten years before we moved to USA.

She had used that jacket before it was lost.

Sentence Structure:

• Affirmative

Subject + had + verb in participle

I had studied before that she came to my room.

• Negative

Subject + had not/ hadn’t + verb in participle

We hadn’t met before.

• Question

Had + subject +verb in participle

Had you worked before?