Quite often, times in English for many become a stumbling block. But in fact, everything is quite simple: you just need to sit, understand the rules and read more texts.
Past Perfect: what time is it
This is the so-called preceding time, when the whole action takes place to be in the past, but ends before a certain moment or the beginning of another action (or event) also in the past. In other words, this is all that has already happened, before something else happened (which also managed to end). Everything refers to a specific time or moment already lived and past. Usually in Past Perfect, the rules provide for the use of several adverbs that show an event that happened earlier: never, ever, yet, already. Example: By the time Julia arrived at the building, Mary was already gone. - By the moment Juliya got to the building, Mary had already left.
Past Perfect: Education Rules
Everything is very simple here. To use this time, you only need to take the second form of the verb have (already familiar had ) and the third form of the verb necessary for the meaning (i.e. past participle). For regular verbs, it is formed by simply adding the –ed ending, for irregular ones it is taken in the dictionary and memorized.
- Affirmative form: I / You / She / They / He had read it.
- Negative form: I / She / He / You / They had not (hadn't) read it.
- Interrogative form: Had I / You / She / He / They read it?
Past Perfect: rules and examples of use
There are two options here that you should always consider and not forget about the coordination of times.
- If the described action has taken place before any specific mark in the past. Example: By 2000, she became a world famous singer. - By 2000 she had become a world-famous singer . Thus, a reference point is immediately set and it is indicated that she achieved success precisely in 2000 and not earlier (that is, a certain event or time in the past takes place).
- If an event or action occurred before the start of another action, also in the past. Past perfect (the rules say this) is used precisely to describe the event that happened earlier. What happened later is described by Past Indefinite. Example: She didn’t want to go to the cinema with us yesterday, because she had already watched The Lord of the Rings. - She didn't want to go to the cinema with us yesterday, because she had already seen "The Lord of the Rings . " In this case, the used adverb immediately demonstrates which of the described actions and events occurred earlier than the other.
Unlike other past tenses
Past Perfect (the rules for its formation are very simple and logical) differs from other times, such as Past Simple, Present Perfect (the rules for their formation are also quite easy: the first is formed by a simple change in the verb and means a simple action that happened in the past, without any underwater stones, the second shows that the event or action happened in the past, but ended right now at the indicated moment or are completed only now.It is formed by using the present verb form and the semantic verb necessary for suggestions), and catching this difference is pretty easy. For this, one should not only learn the form of education, but also ponder the meaning of the proposal as a whole in order to capture its logic and meaning, and not translate word for word. In the latter case, the words are simply mixed up, and there will be no understanding of the text. However, with a thoughtful approach to English grammar, difficulties with understanding both the written text and spoken language will not arise.