📝 Student Instruction: Past Perfect Simple Tense
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When do we use Past Perfect?
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To show that one action happened before another action in the past.
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I had finished my homework before my mom came home.
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To talk about something that happened before a specific time in the past.
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She had left by 8 o’clock.
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Form
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Affirmative (+): Subject + had + past participle (V3)
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I had eaten lunch before 2 p.m.
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They had studied English before they moved to Canada.
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Negative (–): Subject + had not (hadn’t) + past participle
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I hadn’t seen the movie before yesterday.
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She hadn’t finished her work when I called her.
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Question (?): Had + subject + past participle
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Had you studied English before 2010?
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Had he left when you arrived?
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Signal words
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before
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after
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already
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by the time
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when
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Examples
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By the time the teacher arrived, the students had started working.
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She had never traveled by plane before last year.
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Had they eaten before the party started?
👉 Practice Example:
Change the verb into Past Perfect.
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She (leave) before I arrived. → She had left before I arrived.
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They (not finish) their homework by 9 p.m. → They hadn’t finished their homework by 9 p.m.
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(you / see) the movie before last night? → Had you seen the movie before last night?