The past perfect tense: how we form it and why we use it - English In A Minute
83,098 views ・ 2019-07-29
Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.
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Hi, everyone!
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I'm James and today we're going to talk about
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the past perfect tense
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– how we form it and why we use it.
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By the time I arrived at the airport,
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the plane had already left.
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In this example, 'had left' is the past perfect tense.
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The structure for the past perfect tense is
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had + a past participle.
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There are two past actions:
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arriving at the airport
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and the plane leaving.
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But which of these happened first?
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The clue is the past perfect tense.
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The action in the past perfect is the action that
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always happens first.
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Because the verb 'leave' is in the past perfect
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– had left –
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we know that this action happened first.
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The action that happened second
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is often in the past simple tense
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– in this example: 'I arrived'.
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When you want to talk about two past actions,
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one which happened before the other,
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remember to use the past perfect for the first action
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and the past simple for the second.
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Thanks for joining us for this English In A Minute.
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