Past perfect tense

The past perfect tense is used to place an action or state before another point in the past. This later past reference point can be stated explicitly with a past time expression or another past event, or it can be understood from the context.

How to form the past perfect

The past perfect is formed with had + the past participle of the main verb. Had is the same for every subject. Regular past participles usually end in -ed, while irregular verbs have forms such as eaten, gone and seen.

Contractions with the past perfect

The past perfect is often contracted in positive sentences as follows:

• I + had = I’d
• You + had = You’d
• He + had = He’d
• She + had = She’d
• It + had = It’d (pronounced /ɪtəd/)
• We + had = We’d
• They + had = They’d

In negative sentences, the subject and had can be contracted as above before not, or had and not can be contracted to become hadn’t which is a little more common.

When to use the past perfect tense

We use the past perfect when we are looking back from a point in the past to an earlier action or state. It is commonly used to show the order of past events, explain the reason for a past situation, and describe states that continued up to a particular point in the past.

Sequencing past events

Use the past perfect to show that an event happened before a particular time or another event in the past.

The later past reference point can be expressed with a past time expression:

• By 8 o’clock last night, I had sent more than fifty emails.
• Ronaldo had scored more than thirty goals before the Christmas break.
• At that point, I had worked there for ten years.
• She had never eaten pizza until her trip to Italy.

The later past reference point can also be another event, usually expressed in the past simple. This often appears in a time clause introduced by when, before, by the time or until:

• I had already eaten when he called.
• Before we arrived, the meeting had already started.
• By the time we got to the cinema, the movie had already begun.
• He had never travelled abroad until he joined this company.

The past perfect can also appear in the time clause, particularly with after, once and as soon as, while the later event is in the past simple:

• She went to bed after she had finished her work.
• Once he had completed the assignment, he went to sleep.
• As soon as she had finished cooking, they started eating.

Past reasons and explanations

The past perfect can be used to show a reason why something happened in the past or an explanation for a state:

• I was very hungry because I hadn’t eaten at the airport.
• She was angry because her husband had left her.
• The heatwave had affected the tracks, so the trains were cancelled.

Past states

The past perfect can show that a state existed up until a certain point in the past.

• They had lived in Prague for five years when they moved back to England.
• Chris and April had been married for 12 years before they got divorced.
• They had known each other for seven years before the argument.

Common time expressions with the past perfect

The past perfect is often used with words and expressions that relate an earlier action or state to a later point in the past.

Past perfect vs past simple

The past perfect shows which of two connected past events happened first, while the past simple usually describes the later event. With when, the past perfect makes it clear that one event was already complete before the other. If both verbs are in the past simple, the events may instead be understood as happening at the same time or as part of the normal sequence of events:

• When we arrived at the station, the train had already left.
• When I saw you last week, I had already spoken to John about the problem.
• She had already sold her house when we visited her.

With before and after, the order of events is usually clear from the conjunction itself, so the past perfect is often optional for the earlier event:

• The burglar had escaped before the police arrived. / The burglar escaped before the police arrived.
• We got there after Ian and Kerry had left. / We got there after Ian and Kerry left.
• They had finished their homework before they went out. / They finished their homework before they went out.

However, before + past perfect can also show that an action had not happened or was not complete when the later event occurred:

• They left before I’d spoken to them.

Common mistakes with the past perfect

Using the past perfect for a single finished past event

Do not use the past perfect simply because an event happened at a specific or distant time in the past. If you are talking about a single completed event at a finished time in the past and are not relating it to a later past reference point, use the past simple:

• ❌ I had visited the British Museum last year.
• ✅ I visited the British Museum last year.

• ❌ My parents had gone to a new restaurant last night.
• ✅ My parents went to a new restaurant last night.

• ❌ Paul had won a golf tournament in 2017.
• ✅ Paul won a golf tournament in 2017.

Using the past perfect for a normal sequence of events

When events are told in chronological order, we normally use the past simple:

• ❌ Yesterday I had got up at seven, had eaten breakfast and had left for work.
• ✅ Yesterday I got up at seven, ate breakfast and left for work.

However, we do use the past perfect when we need to look back from that past timeline to something that happened earlier:

• Yesterday I got up at seven, ate breakfast and left for work. Halfway to the station, I realised I had left my keys at home.

Free past perfect worksheets