The past perfect simple and continuous
I. Past perfect simple:
1) Form:
|
Affirmative
|
Negative
|
interrogative
|
|
Jane had done her home work
|
Jane had not done her home work
|
Had Jane done her home work?
|
|
S + had + PP
|
S + had + not + pp
|
Had + S + pp?
|
2) Use:
|
Past perfect simple
(first event)
|
Simple past (second
event)
|
|
I had just completed the exam
|
I felt free
|
|
The thief had escaped
|
Before I called the police
|
|
You had studied
English
|
Before you moved to Britain
|
|
He had already left
|
When I got to his house
|
|
We had calmed down
|
By the time the police came
|
|
He had been upstairs
|
When we came home
|
|
We hadn’t noticed
|
Until we heard the foot steps
|
|
After I had called the police
|
We realized the thief was gone
|
The past perfect simple expresses the relationship in time between two
past events. It shows that one action occurred before another action in the
past. The past perfect simple expresses the first action and the past simple
expresses the second action.
+++ The past perfect
simple is used with some adverbials and prepositions:
before, by the time, when,
until, after, already, yet, still, for, just, never………….
II. The past perfect continuous:
1. Form:
|
Affirmative
|
Negative
|
Interrogative
|
|
He had been working
|
He had not been working
|
Had he been working?
|
|
S + had + been + v + ing
|
S + had + not + been + v + ing
|
Had + S + been + v +ing
|
2. Use:
a) When the action began before the time of speaking in the past, and
continued up to that time or stopped before it.
e.g: when I got to the
meeting, the lecture had already been speaking for an hour
b) The past perfect continuous is used to refer to an action in the past
which continued until another action took place.
e.g: The miners had been
digging all night long when an explosion occurred.
c) The past perfect continuous is used to indicate that something occurred
for long time before another event in the past.
e.g: - Ahmed had been
working in cheese factory for ten years before he retired
- Bob had been teaching in
that school for more than twenty years before he became a headmaster.
d) The past perfect continuous is used to explain why an activity or
feeling occurred in the past.
e.g: - It was now six
o’clock pm and he was very tired because he had been working since 8:00 am
- My heart was beating too fast because I had
been running for miles