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    The Past Perfect Tense-1

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    Zineb Bouzaid
    The document discusses the past perfect and past perfect continuous tenses in English. [1] The past perfect tense uses the past tense of "to have" plus the past participle of the main verb to talk about events that occurred before other past events. [2] The past perfect continuous tense uses "had been" plus the present participle to refer to longer actions that were happening before other past events or actions whose results are important. [3] Examples are provided to illustrate the uses and forms of both tenses.

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    The Past Perfect Tense-1

    Uploaded by

    Zineb Bouzaid
    29 views3 pages
    The document discusses the past perfect and past perfect continuous tenses in English. [1] The past perfect tense uses the past tense of "to have" plus the past participle of the main verb to talk about events that occurred before other past events. [2] The past perfect continuous tense uses "had been" plus the present participle to refer to longer actions that were happening before other past events or actions whose results are important. [3] Examples are provided to illustrate the uses and forms of both tenses.

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    The document discusses the past perfect and past perfect continuous tenses in English. [1] The past perfect tense uses the past tense of "to have" plus the past participle of the main verb to talk about events that occurred before other past events. [2] The past perfect continuous tense uses "had been" plus the present participle to refer to longer actions that were happening before other past events or actions whose results are important. [3] Examples are provided to illustrate the uses and forms of both tenses.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    29 views3 pages

    The Past Perfect Tense-1

    Uploaded by

    Zineb Bouzaid
    The document discusses the past perfect and past perfect continuous tenses in English. [1] The past perfect tense uses the past tense of "to have" plus the past participle of the main verb to talk about events that occurred before other past events. [2] The past perfect continuous tense uses "had been" plus the present participle to refer to longer actions that were happening before other past events or actions whose results are important. [3] Examples are provided to illustrate the uses and forms of both tenses.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    The past perfect tense

    The Past Perfect tense in English is composed of two parts: the past tense of the
    verb to have (had) + the past participle of the main verb.

    Affirmative: s+ had + past participle she had given

    Negative: s+had not+past participle she had not given

    Interrogative: had +s +past participle had she given?

    FUNCTIONS OF THE PAST PERFECT

    The past perfect refers to a time earlier than before now. It is used to make it clear
    that one event happened before another in the past. It does not matter which event is
    mentioned first - the tense makes it clear which one happened first.

    The past perfect is used to clarify the order of two past actions where one is dated than
    the other. The first uses past perfect and the second uses simple past.

    In these examples, Event A is the event that happened first and Event B is the second
    or more recent event:

    Event A Event B

    John had gone out when I arrived in the office.

    Event A Event B

    I had saved my document before the computer crashed.

    Event B Event A
    When they arrived we had already started cooking.

    Event B Event A

    He was very tired because he hadn't slept well.

    THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS

    The past perfect continuous is composed of two elements - the past perfect of the
    verb to be (=had been) + verb+ing.

    Affirmative: s+had been+ verb +ing.

    Negative: s+had not+been+verb+ing.

    Interrogative: had+s been+verb+ing.

    FUNCTIONS OF THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS

    The past perfect continuous is used to refer to a long action happening before another.

    It is also used when we are interested in the result of the action.

    EXAMPLES
    Had you been waiting long before the taxi arrived?

    We had been trying to open the door for five minutes when Jane found her key.

    It had been raining hard for several hours and the streets were very wet.

    EXERCISES
    A-Put the verbs into the correct form (past perfect or the simple past)

    -The storm (destroy)……………………… the house that they had built.

    -The children (clean)……………….. the blackboard they had used to do the


    mathematics exercise.

    -When she went out to play, she (do / already)………………………….her homework.

    -She (eat)……………………….. all of the food that we had made.

    -He took off the jacket he (put on)…………………………….before.

    B-1. When I arrived at the station the train……………………. (Leave). 

    2. He (play)…………………………….. tennis for 4 hours when he broke his leg. 

    3. The dog came into the house once she (finish) ………………….the housework. 

    4. He (drive)…………………………. his car for 10 minutes when he realized it had a flat


    tire. 

    5. She (throw)…………………….. the letter away when she noticed it was important. 

    6. He (swim)……………………… for 15 minutes when he understood he had lost his


    swimsuit. 

    7. When he saw her he knew he (meet)…………………….. her before. 

    8. When he phoned her she (go)……………………… out. 

    9. It (rain)………………………………….. for one hour when the wind started to blow. 

    10. He rushed to the baker's when he saw his wife (forget)…………………. to buy some
    bread. 

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