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Study this example situation:
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Sarah went to a party last week. Paul went
to the party too but they didn't see each other. Paul went home
at 10.30 and Sarah arrived at 11 o'clock. So:
When Sarah arrived at the party, Paul wasn't
there. He had gone home.
Had gone is the past perfect (simple):
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I/we/they/you he/she/it
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had
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(= I'd etc.)
(= he'd etc.)
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gone/seen/
finished etc.
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The past perfect simple is had + past participle
(gone/seen/finished etc.). For a list of irregular verbs, see
Appendix 1.
Sometimes we talk about something that happened in
the past:
- Sarah arrived at the party.
This is the starting point of the story.
Then, if we want to talk about things that happened before this
time, we use the past perfect (had...):
- When Sarah arrived at the party, Paul had already gone
home.
Some more examples:
- When we got home last night, we found that somebody had broken
into the flat.
- Karen didn't want to come to the cinema with us because she
had already seen the film.
- At first I thought I'd done the right thing, but I soon
realised that I'd made a serious mistake.
- The man sitting next to me on the plane was very nervous. He
hadn't flown before. He had never flown
before.
Had done (past perfect) is the past of have done (present
perfect). Compare:
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present perfect
- Who is that woman? I've never seen her before.
- We aren't hungry. We've just had lunch.
- The house is dirty. They haven't cleaned it for weeks.
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past perfect
t
- I didn't know who she was. I'd never seen her before. (=
before that time)
- We weren't hungry. We'd just had lunch.
- The house was dirty. They hadn't cleaned it for weeks.
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Compare the past perfect (I had done) and past simple (I
did):
- 'Was Tom at the party when you arrived?' 'No, he had
already gone home.'
but: 'Was Tom there when you arrived?' 'Yes, but he
went home soon afterwards.'
- Ann wasn't at home when I phoned. She was in London.
but: Ann had just got home when I phoned.
She had been in London.
English grammar in use. Raymond Murphy©
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