Past Perfect

What is Past Perfect?

The past perfect, also called the pluperfect, is a verb tense used to talk about actions completed before some point.

The past perfect tense is for talking about something that happened before something else. Imagine waking up one morning and stepping outside to grab the newspaper. On your way back in, you notice a mysterious message scrawled across your front door: Tootles was here. When you’re telling this story to your friends later, how would you describe this moment?

Formula

Always remember that Had + Past participle is an action that comes first before Past simple! but we can also reverse the sentence.

Subject + Had + Past participle + Past simple %%Subject + Past simple + Had + Past participle%%

Example of Sentence

It started to rain after we had got to the station.

I had finished the work.

I couldn't get into the house. I had lost my keys.