Using Past Perfect and Past Perfect Progressive Basic English Grammar
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hi everybody my name is Alisha in this
lesson I’m going to talk about using the
past perfect tense I’m also going to
talk about using the past perfect
progressive or past perfect continuous
tense let’s get started okay first let’s
take a look at the past perfect how to
make the past perfect this is a very
quick introduction to making a past
perfect statement so when we make past
perfect we use had for positive
statements or had not for negative
statements then we add the past
participle form of a verb so we’ll use
this in a few example sentences so we
use the past perfect tense in a few
different situations the first two I
feel are probably some of the more
common ways to use them let’s look here
first we use past perfect tense one to
show a past action that happened before
another past action so to kind of
visualize this I want to look at this
part right here on my timeline I have a
timeline that goes from the past here to
the present now and up to the future so
here in this part I want to look here
for this number one of past perfect when
we want to express that two things
happened in the past one action happened
before another action we can use the
past perfect tense to show the action
that happened further in the past and
simple past tense to show the action
that started more recently or that
happened more recently rather so let’s
look at an example
he hadn’t contacted me for weeks
then suddenly he invited me for coffee
so here we see hadn’t contacted this is
the negative form of the past perfect
tense hadn’t is the contracted form of
had not contacted is my past participle
verb he hadn’t contacted me for weeks so
this is my past perfect situation so
this is the first point hadn’t contacted
me for weeks this is the situation then
suddenly he invited me so this is a
simple past tense comment he invited me
for coffee so my simple past thing
happened next so we can show this
progression of actions here in some
cases when it’s very clear like if the
writer or the speaker uses before or
after we don’t always need to be so
strict with using past perfect and
simple past tense but sometimes
especially when writing stories this is
very useful for showing the order of
actions and sentences okay so let’s
continue to the second point with past
perfect tense we use past perfect to
express something that started in the
past and continued to another point in
the past so to kind of imagine this
let’s look at this part of the timeline
here so again we’re in the past we have
something that started in the past and
continued but also it ended in the past
as well so it does not continue to the
present which would be the present
perfect tense but it continued to a
point in the past and stopped there so
an example sentence with this when I got
my current job I had lived in New York
for four years so here we see again had
lived is our past perfect tense in this
case I’m using the positive form pad
and lived I had lived in New York for
four years so this is my continuing
action the thing that was that began in
the past and continued to a point in the
past so I have again simple past tense
here when I got my current job this part
shows us where this action kind of stops
so when I got my current job I had lived
in New York for four years so this point
on the timeline is where the speaker
began living in New York the point in
time the speaker lived in New York lived
in New York and the person got their job
now in this case it doesn’t mean that
the speaker’s stopped living in New York
we don’t know but the speaker wants to
say at this point in time so even though
the action doesn’t always stop it’s like
there’s some kind of key point some
information here that we want to note so
this is an example of that so a
continuing action and then a key point
in the past maybe stopped the action or
that we just want like kind of mark some
importance for us okay so finally let’s
move to the third point for using past
perfect we use past perfect to talk
about unreal situations in the past you
might see this used with things like
would have could have and should have so
an example of this I would have helped
you plan the surprise party if I had
known about it if I had known about it
this use of the past perfect tense shows
us the speaker did not know about it in
the past so this is an unreal situation
if I had to visualize this again we’re
in the past here’s something I’ve used a
dotted line here to show it’s not real
so there’s something back here in the
past that did not happen but that we
want to reference now we want to talk
about it now
so if in the past I had known so I did
not know
but if I had known I would have helped
you plan so this is an unreal situation
we can use past perfect for all of these
so let’s compare this then to the
progressive or the continuous use of
past perfect when we make the
progressive or continuous form we use
had yes and had not in the negative then
we add bin plus the progressive form of
a verb so we use this one to show
actions that continue in the past until
a point in the past so yes this is very
similar to this past perfect use that I
talked about but we often use this to
express like an interrupted action an
action that was stopped by another
action so this means for example in this
example sentence I had been studying for
an hour when my mom got home so this is
an interrupted action or there’s some
kind of change in the situation
everything happens in the past though so
here had been studying is my past
perfect progressive tense this is the
continuing action on my timeline here
it’s in blue my continuing action in the
past I had been studying for an hour so
this action continued for an hour was
continuing for an hour then the sentence
says when my mom got home so when here
marks the point where the action changes
or the situation changes or is
interrupted so here
I’ve marked in red with this X is the
interruption
when my mom got home we used simple past
tense to describe the interrupting
action the thing that stopped or changed
the continuing action so I had been
studying for an hour past perfect
progressive when my mom got home simple
past tense
so we use this to talk about actions
that were interrupted in the past we can
also use this is kind of like one point
five point number one point five or two
I guess for today we can also use this
to talk just about actions that didn’t
necessarily change or get interrupted
but we want to talk about something that
was continuing and then we kind of from
the context from the conversation we
understand when it stopped so a great
example of this is a sentence like this
we were exhausted because we’d been
working all night so here you can see
there’s not really a change like there’s
not really a point where there’s an
interruption or something stops or
something new happens in this case we’re
just kind of making - past tense
statements similar to what I talked
about end point one over here but we
want to emphasize a continuing action so
here I have past tense we were exhausted
we were exhausted exhausted means very
tired we were exhausted because we’d
this part please be careful a good note
here we had we were exhausted because
we’d been working all night so this
working action had continued all night
long we want to emphasize that and then
after that we were exhausted but there’s
not there’s not a change there it’s like
the speaker is telling a story maybe so
we were exhausted because we’ve been
working all night when we got home we
found out we didn’t have our keys so you
might see a sentence like this in a
story so it’s not a like I said a
specific point where a change occurs but
we kind of understand from the story or
from the situation what’s happening
so you’ll see this continuous or the
progressive form used quite commonly in
these kind
situations so this is a quick
introduction to using the past perfect
tense and the past perfect progressive
tense I hope that this helps you
understand these two grammar points if
you have any questions or comments or
want to practice making some sentences
with this grammar please feel free to do
so in the comment section of this video
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