SIMPLE PAST TENSE VS PAST PERFECT TENSE - The Difference between the Two

Alright, question number five. What is the  difference between simple past and past perfect?  

For example, “did you see the class, or have  you seen the class?” So, I’m going to switch my  

screen here. Alright, so hopefully you guys can  see that now. So here we have a little screen,  

a little thing explaining the difference. So,  simple past is used to talk about completed and  

finished past events or actions. For example,  “I watched a film last night.” This means it  

happened in the past and it is done. I’m not  watching a movie now, it happened last night.  

“I didn't go to school on Monday.” So, this  is the negative form. I did not do that  

at that time. Right, it didn't happen. In the  question form, “did you go surfing last week?” So,  

this is asking about a completed or finished past  event. And there, in those we saw the structure. A  

normal sentence is subject + past simple verb and  completing the sentence. So, “I went to school.”  

The negative form subject + didn't + base form and  the rest of the sentence. “I didn't go to school.”  

And the question form, did + subject + base  form, and the rest of the question. “Did you go  

to school?” And again, these are all used to talk  about completed past events, past things. So, the  

past simple is verb plus “ed,” but don't forget  about those irregular verbs like “went” Right,  

we'd say, “today I go, yesterday I went.” No “ed”  right, don't forget about those irregular verbs.  

Now let's look at past perfect. Past perfect  is used to express the idea that something  

happened before another action in the past.  “I had seen a film. I hadn't gone to school.”  

Had you gone, should say gone, surfing? So,  there we saw our structure for the past perfect.  

Subject + had + participle. Subject + hadn't  + participle, and had + subject + participle.  

Remember, our participles are those  words like, been, seen, gone, and so on.

So, the past simple, the past participles, are  verb plus “ed.” Walked, “I had walked.” Unless  

we have an irregular verb like “be” changes to  “been.” Okay, so again this is about a timeline.  

We have our past perfect, then the past simple up  to now. So, these are really useful for talking  

about something that happened before. So, let's  take a look our past perfect. “Paul had gone,”  

plus our past simple “Sarah arrived.” So our  sentence is, “when Sarah arrived Paul had left.”  

So, which action do you think happened first?  “When Sarah arrived Paul had left.” Well, here  

Paul left first, Sarah arrived after Paul  left. So, we used the past perfect to talk  

about something that happened before another event  in the past. “When Sarah arrived, Paul had left.”  

He was already gone. Okay, let's take a look  at a few more examples to see this, that we  

use that past perfect to talk about events that  happened before. So, we'll just look at a few.  

So here, “when we arrived to the theater,  they had sold all the tickets.” So again,  

what happened first? Did they sell all the tickets  first? Or did we arrive to the theater first?  

They sold all the tickets first. That past perfect  is something that happened before. Before we  

got to the theater, all the tickets had sold.  Let's go to number three. “I had met him before  

he was famous.” Okay, so here what happened first?  Was he famous first? Or did I meet him first?

Here, I met him first. Our simple past is what  happened first before he was famous right. I had  

met him before he was famous. So, he became famous  after I met him. Okay guys and I’ll leave these  

here for a second. There we see the difference,  the key difference between simple past and past  

perfect past perfect is used to talk about things  that happen before something else very often.