📚 Past Perfect Tense

A2 - B1 Level

What is the Past Perfect?

The past perfect tense is used to talk about an action that happened before another action in the past.

Example: I had eaten breakfast before I went to school.

(First: I ate breakfast → Second: I went to school)

Form

✓ Affirmative

Subject + had + past participle

  • • I/You/He/She/It/We/They had finished
  • • She had studied English before she moved to London.
  • • They had left before we arrived.

✗ Negative

Subject + had not (hadn't) + past participle

  • • I/You/He/She/It/We/They had not (hadn't) finished
  • • He hadn't seen the movie before yesterday.
  • • We hadn't met before the party.

? Questions

Had + subject + past participle?

  • • Had I/you/he/she/it/we/they finished?
  • • Had you eaten dinner before the movie?
  • • Had they arrived before the meeting started?

Signal Words

before

I had finished my homework before dinner.

after

After she had studied, she went to bed.

when

When I arrived, they had left.

already

He had already eaten.

never...before

I had never seen it before.

by the time

By the time she called, I had left.

Practice Exercises

Choose the correct answer for each sentence.

Final Quiz

Choose between Present Perfect or Past Perfect for each sentence.

Pay attention to the signal words!