Practice Past Perfect Tense | Basic English Grammar Course | Check Up

Hi, everybody.

I'm Esther.

Now let's take a look at some practice exercises for the basic usage of the past perfect tense.

Take a look at the first sentence.

‘I blank for six hours before I had a break.’

The verb here is ‘work’.

Remember, we need to say ‘I had’.

No matter what the subject is, say ‘had’.

And then, you take the past participle of the verb.

In this case, we would say ‘worked’.

‘I had worked for six hours before I had a break.’

For the next sentence, I want you to try the negative form.

‘We blank TV before we listened to the radio.’

Remember, for the negative form, we say ‘had not’

or we use the contraction, ‘hadn't’.

‘We hadn’t’.

And then, we need the past participle.

‘We hadn't watched TV before we listened to the radio.’

Now find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘Reggie had it be to Mexico before he went to Peru.’

Well, we have the subject here and for the negative, ‘hadn't’ is correct.

However, we need the past participle of the verb ‘be’.

So the correct answer is,

‘Reggie hadn't been to Mexico before he went to Peru.’

And finally, ‘Sally and Jan or they had do their job.’

Hmm.

Remember, we need the past participle.

We don't say do.

We say ‘done’.

‘Sally and Jan had done their job before they watched TV.’

Let's move on.

In this checkup, we'll take a look at some practice exercises

for the past perfect tense that describes how long.

Let's take a look at the first sentence.

‘You blank at the park for three hours before you came home.’

Remember, we start with the subject and then ‘had’.

So I'm going to add that here,

then we need the past participle of the verb ‘be’.

And that is ‘been’.

‘You had been at the park for three hours before you came home.’

The next sentence says,

‘They blank for six hours before they took a break.’

Again, no matter what the subject, we have ‘had’ and then the past participle.

So the answer is,

‘They had studied for six hours before they took a break.’

Now, find the mistake in the next sentence.

It's a little bit longer so it might take you a while.

‘They had been known each other for ten years before they had their first fight.’

Can you find the mistake?

Well, we have the subject and ‘had’, but check this out.

There are two past participles here.

We need to get rid of one of them.

We can take out this verb and say, ‘They had known each other for ten years

before they had their first fight.’

The next sentence says, ‘I have played soccer for many years before I scored my first goal.’

This sentence doesn't look wrong at first.

But remember, in the past perfect tense, we need to say ‘had’.

‘I had played soccer for many years before I scored my first goal.’

Good job, everybody.

Let's move on.

Great job, everyone.

Now you have a better understanding of the past perfect tense.

I know it can be a little difficult but keep studying,

and keep practicing, and you will get better.

I know studying English is not easy but with time and effort,

I know you'll master it.

Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.