Page 42 - English Grammar in Use

Unit
15 Past perfect (I had done)

A Study this example situation:
Bye! Sarah and Paul went to the same party last week, but they
10.30 didn’t see each other. Paul left the party at 10.30 and Sarah

arrived at 11 o’clock.
So when Sarah arrived at the party, Paul wasn’t there.
PAUL
He had gone home.
had gone is the past perfect:
11.00 Hi!
gone
I/we/they/you (= I’d etc.)
had seen
he/she/it (= he’d etc.)
finished etc.
SARAH

The past perfect (simple) is had + past participle (gone/seen/finished etc.).
Sometimes we talk about something that happened in the past:
Sarah arrived at the party.
This is the starting point of the story. Then, if we want to talk about things that happened before this time,
we use the past perfect (had …):
When Sarah arrived at the party, Paul had already gone home.
Some more examples:
When we got home last night, we found that somebody had broken into the flat.
Karen didn’t come to the cinema with us. She’d already seen the movie.
At first I thought I’d done the right thing, but I soon realised that I’d made a big mistake.
The people sitting next to me on the plane were nervous. They hadn’t flown before.
or They’d never flown before.

B Compare present perfect (have seen etc.) and past perfect (had seen etc.):

Present perfect Past perfect

have seen had seen

past now past now

Who is that woman? I’ve seen her before, I wasn’t sure who she was. I’d seen her
but I can’t remember where. before, but I couldn’t remember where.
We aren’t hungry. We’ve just had lunch. We weren’t hungry. We’d just had lunch.
The house is dirty. They haven’t cleaned The house was dirty. They hadn’t
it for weeks. cleaned it for weeks.

C Compare past simple (left , was etc.) and past perfect (had left, had been etc.):
Past simple Past perfect
a: Was Tom there when you arrived? a: Was Tom there when you arrived?

b: Yes, but he left soon afterwards. b: No, he’d already left .
Kate wasn’t at home when I phoned. Kate had just got home when I phoned.
She was at her mother’s house. She’d been at her mother’s house.

30 Past perfect continuous ➜ Unit 16 Irregular verbs (gone/seen etc.) ➜ Appendix 1