THE PAST PERFECT TENSE

This blog was made to help you to understand the past perfect tense in English language. Here you'll find a complete set of tools integrated by:

· Videos

· Exercises

· Web pages

· Simple explanations

We invite you to explore this blog and use all its tools. Good luck with your course!!! :D =)

Before we start, we want you to know:

The blog was created thinking in a group of students of intermediate level in English, who are in fourth semester in English Language. The students have already learnt other tenses such as simple present, simple past, present perfect, among others. Also, they already know the correct structure of present perfect to make affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences and some regular and irregular verbs in past participle. In order to have a better understanding of past perfect tense it is necessary to have that previous knowledge. But if you just want to have a general idea about what past perfect tense is you are welcome anyway.

If you want to remember and practice, here there is useful information about the present perfect tense:

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/present-perfect-simple

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/pres_perf.htm

PAST Perfect

Past perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past.

We form past perfect with:

A subject: I, you, he, she, we, etc.

The auxiliary had

The past participle form of the verb.

So, the structure to make an affirmative sentence is:

Subject + aux had + verb in past participle + complement

Example

Sub Aux. Past participle

He had played football.

They had had two dogs.

You had done your homework.

Here there is more information and exercises for you to practice.

http://www.englishbaby.com/lessons/grammar/past_perfect_tense

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses_past-perfect_s.htm

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/past-perfect-simple/exercises?03

http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/past-perfect-exercise-1.html

Negative form

Had + not + past perfect

When you want to write a sentence in negative form, you only have to add not. If you want to write it in the short way, you only put hadn´t.

Examples:

I had not played hockey.

She had not gone home.

He hadn´t left when I arrived.

They hadn´t been in NY before their trip in 2009.

These pages could help you to practice the negative form.

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/past-perfect-simple/exercises?04

http://www.adelescorner.org/grammar/past_perfect/past_perfect_neg.html

THE PAST PERFECT / INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES

Affirmative

To make interrogative sentences affirmative in the past perfect tense we need the auxiliary had. The structure is the following:

Had + subject + past participle form of the verb + C + ?

Examples:

Had he bought a car?
Had you studied English before?
Had the bus arrived on time in the morning?
Had he done exercise before?

Negative

To make interrogative sentences negative in the past perfect tense the word not is placed after the auxiliary had. The structure is the following:

Had not+ subject + past participle form of the verb + ?

Examples:

Had not the girls visited X-caret?

Had not he tried chicken salad yet?

Had not you studied for the English exam?

Had not she taken the French course before?