past perfect
hi today we're going to be looking at the past perfect in English you'll learn
how and when to use it and keep watching until the end as there'll be some
questions to see how much you've learnt I've also changed my software hope you
like it let me know in the comment section down below so let's get started
so imagine the scene Tom left for work at 8 a.m. and Sue rang the doorbell at
8:30 so let's draw a timeline and we've got Tom left here and we've got sue
ringing the doorbell here and these are in the past simple rang and left because
we use the past simple for completed actions in the past but say we want to
join these two sentences together we'd say sue rang the doorbell at 8:30 or sue
rang the doorbell but Tom had already left and here you can see we use the
past perfect had already left because we're referring to an earlier past so
Tom left before sue rang the doorbell in the past so we use the past perfect okay
so let's look at the form so the form of the past perfect is to have use had plus
the past participle so we'd say I had left and often I had is abbreviated to
just I'd and therefore also I'd he'd she'd etc
so let's look at an example when we got home last night
someone had broken into the flat ok so again we've got a time line this is now
and this is the past so here we can mark the events in the past here we've got
someone breaking into the flat and here we've got us when we got home so again
two actions completed in the past so first one we put got in the past simple
and broken in we use the past perfect because it's an earlier past so it comes
before the event of us getting home so to show that its previous it's an
earlier past we use the past perfect okay so the past perfect as we've just
seen is often used with adverbs such as already just and never so let's look at
an example so we've got Bob didn't want to see the play because he had already
seen it so again we're looking at a time line this is now and we've got the two
events he didn't want to see it we say this in the past simple and an earlier
past we say had already seen it comes before didn't want to see and and it's
an earlier past so we use the past perfect and here you can see the adverb
already and it comes between the auxilary and the past participle so had
already seen is the past perfect
so let's look at another example this time we're looking at the adverb never
so he had never eaten snails before he had never eaten snails before he came to
France so here we're looking at again two events in the past and we're going
to draw a timeline so you can see when these events happened so let's draw the
timeline here we've got now and we've got the event coming to France it's in
the past and we've got the event of never eating
snails which comes before so he had never eaten again you can see the adverb
comes in between the auxiliary and the past participle let's look at another
example I'm going to compare two sentences this time and you can see the
difference between the usage of the verbs so the first sentence is James had
cooked breakfast when we got up and again we've got a timeline and you can
see now is here but also let's see the events so had cooked is an event that
happened before we got up so again it's an earlier past so we used the past
perfect whereas if we use the past simple so here we've got cooked which is
in the past simple and got up in the past simple this time if we draw a
timeline you can see that the events are in a different order we got up and then
James cooked breakfast and that is shown purely from the use of the two different
tenses so the past simple in both with both verbs shows you a different order -
if you use the past perfect and the past simple remember a past perfect is
showing an earlier past let's look at another example the house is dirty they
haven't cleaned it for weeks so this time we're going to be looking at
comparison between the present perfect and the past perfect so again let's draw
a time line and we've got now and the past and having cleaned is the present
perfect and this shows you that it's up until now the present perfect has always
an impact on now so the house is dirty and they haven't cleaned it up until now
so this is why we use the present perfect as you can see from the timeline
however if we said the house was dirty they hadn't cleaned it for weeks here
you can see we're using the past perfect hadn't cleaned it for weeks the timeline
is different because the meaning is different okay so let's look at the
timeline we've got now and we've got the past and we've got hadn't cleaned so
this time it's up until a point in the past where they hadn't cleaned it but it
means that it's now finished and it's in the past it's not still dirty the house
so this is the difference between the present perfect and the past perfect so
they had finished work when I got them so here you can see the first verb had
finished is in the past perfect and the second verb is in the past simple so
let's look at a timeline here we've got had finished an earlier past and we've
got got there so here because you've used the past perfect and the past
simple you can tell the order of events you can see that had finished being the
past perfect is Earl an early event than the got there which is in the past
simple so you know the order events purely by the use of the verbs however
you can make it clearer by using a different conjunction to show the order
of events here we use when we're as you could say they had finished work before
I got there and this actually adds clarity to the order of events okay so
now it's your turn i blank him because i blank him several
times before use the vans recognize and see so i recognized
yes I recognized him because I had seen him several times before this is using
recognized in the past simple and because it's an earlier past we use had
seen him in the past before you recognize him
think of the timeline which event comes first and then which verb tense you need
to use okay number two he blank by the time we blank use the verbs already eat
and arrive they already there is a bit of a clue isn't it
he had already eaten by the time we arrived so here we have the past perfect
had eaten with the adverb already in between the auxiliary and the past
participle and arrived in the past simple so which event came first the
earlier past is the past perfect had eaten and past simple is the arrived
Philip blank at the party because he blank his leg playing football
the day before news the verbs is not and break so here we want a negative so we
used wasn't and had broken so wasn't is the past simple in the negative of is
and had broken is the past perfect after break so the events again thinking of
your timeline he broke his leg in an earlier past before he wasn't at the
party so he put had broken in the past perfect congratulations you now know how
to use the past perfect in English please remember to like this video if
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past perfect