The past perfect

• How it works
• Conjugation
  • Negative sentences
  • Questions
  • Contractions
• When to use it
  • Sequencing past events
  • Past perfect + past simple in narration
  • Questions and negative sentences

How it works

The past perfect is used to talk about an action that happened before another action in the past. It is built with had + past participle.

I had eaten.

She had left.

They had finished.

Conjugation

Had is the same for all persons:

I had + past participle

you had + past participle

he / she / it had + past participle

we had + past participle

they had + past participle

Negative sentences

We add not after had:

I had not eaten.

She had not finished.

Questions

We invert the subject and had:

Had you eaten?

Had she finished?

Contractions

It is very common to contract the subject and had:

I had => I'd [aɪd]

you had => you'd [ju:d]

he had => he'd [hi:d]

she had => she'd [ʃi:d]

we had => we'd [wi:d]

they had => they'd [ðeɪd]

Be careful: I'd can mean I had or I would. The context tells you which one.

In negative sentences, we can contract had and not:

had not => hadn't ['hædənt]

When to use it

Sequencing past events

When we narrate two past events, we use the past perfect for the earlier one and the past simple for the later one. We often use when, before, after, or by the time to connect them.

When I arrived, she had already left.

I had finished dinner before he called.

After they had eaten, they went for a walk.

By the time we got there, the movie had started.

by the time [baɪ ðə taɪm] - at or before the moment when

Past perfect + past simple in narration

I went to the restaurant, but it had closed.

She was tired because she had worked all day.

He didn't want to eat because he had already had lunch.

Questions and negative sentences

Had you eaten before the meeting?

She hadn't finished when I called.