Grade 9 Grammar Lesson 10 Past perfect

What is the structure of past perfect tense?
When do we use the past perfect tense?

The past perfect tense is formed by:

• Subject + had (n’t) + past participle. .
• Had (n’t) + subject + past participle.?
• Wh + had (n’t) + subject + past participle.?

We use the past perfect to talk about long time past actions that are in a completed state.

Past perfect is the past of present perfect. So, all present perfect actions become past perfect with the passage of time.

When one action takes place after the other, we use past perfect for the earlier action and past simple for the latter action. We use connectives like:

• before   soon after    as soon as    no sooner  had… than…     long before     when     after

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