Using the Past Perfect Tense - Perfect English Grammar

strolling hi everybody and welcome back to our weekly live stream my name is Alisha and today we're going to talk about how to use past perfect past perfect tense is a tense that lots of people ask me about when to use so today we're going to focus on a few different uses of this grammar and of course how to make statements and questions I'm going to use a lot of examples in today's lesson so I hope all the time find a lot of new things in the ways of using this grammar point so as you join please make sure to send a message in the chat and also please like and share this video so that other learners can find today's lesson that would be super cool while we wait for some people from for lots of people to join us live as always a couple of quick announcements first thing first is this banner at this screen our team breeze so you can check all the details from the link below the video if you are watching this on youtube or above the video if you are watching this on Facebook you need an 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asked ok that is all for announcements lots of people are joining so I will come to say hello to you all I see many of you are on YouTube hello YouTube chat I will come to you first welcome YouTube Osman hello Jermaine hello Charlie rocky hi Joey MTA hello Mohammed Khan Maajid again hello very nice to see everybody fantastic I am broadcasting from my house this week so if this is your first time joining our remote broadcasts and welcome I'm looking over here to see our Facebook friends Facebook where are you hello Facebook okay fantastic I see people on Facebook juice I will say hello to you Noah and Paul I farn hello Mohammed hello everybody welcome welcome okay I'm going to show our lesson boards for today now this is our lesson flow so please take a look you can take a screenshot of this to your lots of people I made this so people can take screenshots easily so for this I'm going to focus first on when to use past perfect then I'm going to talk about how to make past perfect and at the end of this we're going to talk about some common patterns finally we're going to talk about how to make questions with past perfect so we will cover these points in today's lesson Oh ki dokie let's get started so let's begin then with past perfect when to use past perfect when to use past perfect so this is the first part this I'm going to cover two points two uses of past perfect depending on the study resource you use you might see kind of different explanations for this grammar so I hope that this discovers kind of broadly the main uses of it so as you'll see the primary use of past perfect is for showing a sequence of something so sequence means one action after another so let's take a look when do we use past perfect first let's look at number one we use past perfect for actions that finished before another past action actions that finished before another past action for example I was really excited to see the movie because I had read great reviews so this sentence has to past actions or to like past in this case a past condition I was really excited and then here I had read great reviews so we're seeing two actions at the same time so this is the primary use I want to focus on her past perfect this week so to visualize this on a timeline we can imagine that our past perfect action happens before the simple past action so in this example sentence I was really excited is my simple past action and then I had read great reviews this is my past perfect point this part I read great reviews this happened before I saw the movie so we use past perfect to show that two things like two past actions happened and we want to show the earlier action we use past perfect to do this ok so let's look at one more example now that we know this one more example when we arrived the meeting had already started when we arrived the meeting had already started so in this case again we have two actions arrived that's my simple past action and the meeting had already started so I'm going to talk about already in part two of today's lesson this is a very common word we see with this grammar point so when we arrived simple past the meeting had already started mean the meeting started before this other simple past action so we're showing sequence that's the primary use like that's kind of the theme we will see with all the uses of past perfect okay I'm checking the livestream for all your questions if you have a question please send it in the chat I will try to check them live I'm checking both Facebook and YouTube at the same time there are many people sending comes inside ok let's go to the second point I want to cover for today if you watched the would have wouldn't have lesson that I did last week you may be familiar with this example sentence huh so we use the second use I want to cover for today is we use past perfect to express a past unreal condition and result so a past unreal condition that means in if situation that is not true we just want to imagine it and we want to talk about the imagined result so again we're showing a sequence so there's a first action and a second action in this case both are unreal so it's an action or a condition but they're both not real we're just imagining them we use past perfect to do this so what does this mean let's look at an example sentence this is one I used in last week's lesson if I had studied I would have passed the test if I had studied I would have passed the test so what's happening in this sentence here is my past perfect expression if I had studied so we learned in last week's lesson actually this means I did not study this means I did not study in the past but I want to imagine if I had studied I would have passed the test so today I'm not going to talk about this would have grammar this expresses this unreal condition in the past but again the relationship between the two actions is important with this grammar past perfect simple past or in this case a would have expression okay one more example then we'll get to the last point here this one if he hadn't called me I wouldn't have known about the party if he hadn't called me I wouldn't have known about the party hmm so here we have a negative a negative so this is an example of negative use of past perfect if he had not so this hadn't means had not this means he did call me he did call me but I want to imagine if that person had not called me this condition would not have been true I wouldn't I would not have known about the party so that means he did call me so I knew about the party I just want to imagine a different situation okay so these are the kind of broad uses the general uses of this grammar point that we're going to talk about today so I want to address a very common question a very common question like lots of people ask so what's the difference between like a simple past and past perfect like why should I use that Y as this grammar important to do that to talk about that I want to I want to compare let's compare these two sentences first one when we arrived the meeting started second when we arrived the meeting had started so what's the difference between these two sentences why should we care the first sentence when we arrived the meeting started it sounds like at the moment we arrived the meeting started like the other people were waiting for us so when we arrived okay we started the meeting but with this sentence when we arrived the meeting had started means before we arrived so before we arrived the meeting started we joined after the meeting started so this it seems like a small point I know but it's not like you can communicate a lot with these with with this kind of decision so past perfect a key point to us a yorkie point for today to remember past perfect communicates a sequence there's a sequence of activities whatever your past past past activity is the furthest in the past activity should be in past perfect tense use simple past tense to express the activity that's closest to the present okay that is part one for today so this is how we use past perfect tense I'm looking for your examples if if I had reviewed my internet connection I would have seen your streaming clearly okay good nice when we go reviewed maybe checked checked' is a good word check your internet connection we usually use the verb check there okay hi Lisa how are you I am great how are you okay I don't see any other questions so I'm going to continue to part two after a very very tiny Chiney made me Rick if you missed it earlier our team has put together this free beginner level course and a 52 page workbook that you can use you can download it is a PDF you can download it to use together with the free beginner level course I'm pointing at this banner on the screen on our website so to get this you need your name and an email address to make a free account in English class 101.com the link is below the video if you are watching on youtube or above the video if you are watching on facebook great okay good some examples are coming in now with today's grammar on YouTube Annie says if the weather had been better I could have gone out maybe if the weather was better I could have gone out I would reverse those if the if the weather had been better I could have gone out because like the weather kind of happened first the weather condition is first so good I would just reverse those to make it natural okay great I don't see other examples so I will show you today's lesson boards again so you can see where we are if you're just joining so today we're talking about past perfect I've just talked about when to you is past perfect now we're going to talk about how to make past perfect I'm also going to cover some common patterns that we use with past perfect finally we'll talk about how to make questions so now we're going to talk about statements statements Oh yoky so continuing on to parts two then uh alright so part two and if you're just joining please don't forget please do like and share the video so that other people can find today's lesson awesome alright let's go to part good part do it past perfect how to make it so a very nice point about this grammar is it's pretty easy to make the basic this basic form we need three things just three things we need our subject and we need had and we need the past participle form of our bird that's it I think that makes but the difference here like they're challenging point here is this mix part of the sentence we need to use past perfect together with something else so subject had past participle verb if you're not sure what the past participle verb form is this is a verb form we need to study for each verb so we'll cover some common ones in the examples today to make this negative just put not right here just put your nut before the verb had not verb to make it natural reduce it hadn't hadn't had into verb so we're going to look at three examples now we're going to look at some posit examples and some negative examples and then we're going to look at some common patterns you see with past perfect sue carrying on first one he offered us free tickets but we had seen the movie he offered us free tickets but we had seen the movie so offered is my past tense action my simple past tense action but we had seen the movie so in this situation someone says I have free tickets would you like to see this movie you can have these but we had seen the movie so that means before that situation before this person offered us the tickets we had seen the movie so we use past perfect to express that this action happened before this action okay hmm all right let's go on to part two or example number two if you have questions please send them in the chat mmm onward uh this one we had finished our homework by the time dinner was ready we had finished our homework by the time dinner was ready so in this case my past perfect part of the sentence comes first it comes at the beginning we had finished our homework so that's the early the earlier of the two activities by the time dinner was ready so that means dinner became ready after we finished our homework I'm going to talk about this by the time part a little bit later mmm this is a common expression we see okay a final example sentence and then we'll cover these patterns is a negative a negative so I hadn't finished my work for the day but my boss said it was time to go home and rest so again I hadn't had not I hadn't finished my work for the day but my boss said it was time to go home and rest so again this action or this condition was first in this case it's a negative so that means I had I wasn't finished with my work that was my condition that was my situation but my boss said it was time to go home and rest so this was first this was the first condition earliest condition rather this was the earliest condition and this one was more recent my boss said it was time to go home and rest so again we're using past perfect to show this sequence of activities okay so now we have these three example sentences let's cover some key patterns that we see with past perfect some of these were also they were in part one maybe I'll show you these if it's conveniently okay so let's cover I've chosen three common patterns that we see with this grammar so let's take a look the first one is this had already pattern subject had already past participle verb I used this pattern in the first the first part of today's lesson in this example this one right here oops sorry yeah this one when we arrived the meeting had already started when we arrived the meeting had already started so this had already pattern is very common with this grammar this pattern emphasizes the action was completed so that means that this verb we want to emphasize that this verb was like done or completed so in the example I'll show you this example again in this sentence when we arrived the meeting had already started this sentence is correct we use obviously the sentence is correct so is this sentence when we arrived the meeting had started so what's the difference between already and not already it's an emphasis thing we want to emphasize that this action began so it feel a little bit like oh maybe I was late like I want to emphasize for some reason that this thing was completed or this thing had been done so this already is a very common word you'll see in past perfect pattern so again it emphasizes this action this verb the verb after already was completed on YouTube Chung Cohen says when I came into the classroom the lesson had already started perfect very nice ok let's go to common pattern number 2 subject had never past participle verb so I think maybe lots of you are familiar lots of you know about this pattern when we see this never before the past participle verb you can imagine this like the not but it's expressing no life experience of something this means but also in the past so maybe you know have never I have never done something but had never done something means before the past point in time subject so this person had no experience with something no experience with something so I think I'm going to show you maybe I'm not going to show you so for example I might say I might talk about a vacation I took with my friend we go to France together and my friend tries French food for the first time ever I'm like wow this is your first time eating french fries so when we come back from vacation and I tell other people about the vacation I might say oh I couldn't believe my friend had never tried French food so that means before the past point in time my friend had no experience trying French food that's a situation where you might hear this grammar used okey-dokey all right let's go to the last one then this one I've used this in this example sentence oh sorry this example sentence last common pattern I want to talk about is subject had past participle verb same thing past participle verb by the time blah blah blah by the time this is a really really common pattern with past perfect grammar so what does it mean at some point before the past tense action the past perfect action was completed so this is key so I'll read it one more time at some point before the past tense so this means the simple past tense action the past perfect action was completed so let's look at this example we had finished our homework by the time dinner was ready that means at some point before dinner was ready we finished our homework so that doesn't mean like exactly when dinner finished we completed our homework it doesn't mean that it just means at some point in time before dinner was ready we finished our homework so that's what by the time by the time this thing happened this condition happened means before that point in time but we don't we can't substitute before here we don't say we had finished our homework before dinner was ready I guess mm-hmm I guess you could if you wanted to but it sounds a bit more natural to say by the time diet all right whew that was a lot but I think these three these are really really good to take away from today's lesson because we use these to make to create more subtle nuances to create like deeper meanings all right I'm looking for your questions I don't see your questions some examples are coming in on YouTube though Gertrudis says I had taken a shower by the time he got home next one on YouTube Conwell Jeet says I had never been to hill station so I was so excited very nice Alys asks a question when we use past perfect it means we compare two clauses about something as something happened in time so yes I think I think that's the same thing I covered this in part one of today's lesson we're covering two actions to past tense actions and we're showing the sequence past perfect is the first action simple past tense is the more recent action okay let's see see hum says I want to know if this rule is correct before plus simple pass after plus past perfect can you send me an example sentence because it's not true like if I'm not it's helpful for an example sentence there I'm not quite sure okay uh let's see mmm some examples on Facebook now I had finished my homework by the time you arrived perfect Bernice very nice very nice okay I don't see any other questions so I need to move along oh my gosh to the final part for today the final part for today I will take a quick break to remind you about our free beginner level course you can get this from the link below the video if you are watching on youtube above the video if you are watching on Facebook there is a 52 page PDF to download to use together to use along with this course I'm pointing at this banner here so check it out also please like and share this video so that other people can find today's lesson okay I'll show you today's lesson boards again so you can take a picture if you want hey there alright so first I talked about when we use past perfect then I talked about how to make statements we just practice this last we're going to practice making questions with this grammar we're going to practice information questions and one yes-or-no question okay I will take these away and we'll go to the last part of today's lesson how to make questions isn't that exciting okay onward how to make questions with this grammar again thankfully this is not super difficult we can make it but again it's challenging to know when to use it so how do we make a pass perfect question first in parentheses I have wh cube this means oh who what where when why how question one of those information getting questions yeah so when we want to make an information question we put this at the beginning of the sentence so WH question had subject past participle form so this is the same as statements yeah so that's pretty easy right we just put our question word at the front to make a negative we put not the same parts we have the same parts of the sentence as with our statement patterns all right so to make a yes-or-no question we can just remove the wh question had subject verb so it's very short very very quick so let's look at some examples to understand what's happening in these questions so first one I've underlined the past perfect question here what had he eaten the day before he started feeling sick what had he eaten the day before he started feeling sick so as with our statements in part two we have our path past action and our simple past action he started so we still are showing a sequence this is even though it's a question we're still asking about something that happened before another past tense action so this one we want to ask a question about something before another past action so he started feeling sick I want to know what had he eaten before that so I'm trying to find the cause of that what Eitan the day before he started feeling sick also a pronunciation point about these questions these I just I just said it when I read the question this what had he eaten we tend to reduce these had sounds after our question words so what hat sounds like what did what did what did he eaten what did he eat in the day before he started feeling sick so we tend to reduce those let's try it with another example question where had they been before they arrived at the party where had they been before they arrived at the party so again this where had they been is the past past action this action so they arrived at the party but we want to ask where were they before that so we want to ask about those two things at the same time we use past perfect to do that where had they been before they arrived at the party so again I have a simple past tense action my question is in past perfect because I want to know about the earlier action Maxo on youtube says can I use had had in a in a past perfect phrase sure so had let's see in like a past perfect statement so if your verb is have then yes had had can absolutely be used um okay let's continue on to this one then why hadn't he confirmed the reservation before you got to the hotel so again why hadn't negative yeah why hadn't he confirmed the reservation before you got to the hotel so again this is asking about an earlier action before you got my verb here my past tense verb here is got so the past tense of get this is a casual way to say arrived somewhere so this action we want to ask about this one the is the earlier of the two actions why was this thing not done so we want to ask the reason something did not happen why hadn't he confirmed so it confirmed it's like a way of saying checked why hadn't he confirmed the reservation before you got to the hotel so we want we this might be like a clarifying kind of question hmm okay uh all right I don't see ah let's see questions yet on YouTube Ali says can we use past perfect which should have I would say it's probably I can't think of an example off the top of my head we tend to use this grammar with would have patterns mm-hm perhaps there's perhaps we can I can't think of an example like right right now okay so let's take a look at one yes or no pattern then so this is how'd you slept before you went to the airport had you slept before you went to the airport so this is different from these three questions because these three these all start with this WH question yeah this one is a simple yes-or-no question had you slept before you went to the airport so again the the earlier action is sleeping we want to ask did the other person sleep before they went to the airport so again we're asking about past past situations here okay so these are a few examples of ways to make questions but again even when you make questions you need to refer to a sequence with this grammar so we're talking about a past action with simple past tense and an earlier action with past perfect even when you're making questions so that is the key point from today's lesson okey-dokey all right I'm coming to take a look at your questions now I have oh my gosh only a few minutes so I'll try to take a look let's see had you a sarah on facebook says had you eaten well before you went to work okay that sounds right mmm nice had you Barney says had you cooked before you went to the party okay maybe you can use that okay nice other ones Annie just like present us are you the chat is going very quickly I'm trying to catch all of your questions it let's just like in present perfect in past perfect is the time duration or the point in time not important a good question I wish let's refer back to part one a little bit the the time duration is not so important for simple past perfect if you're talking about past perfect continuous that means I had been verb in that form then time time duration length of time is important I made a live lesson about past perfect continuous a few weeks ago so please take a look at that I'll put a link in the YouTube description so past perfect continuous duration is important with this simple past perfect the key is showing the relationship between two past actions okay ah let's see our piecing says can I use oh sorry I just lost your question the chat goes so quickly it was where had they been and where where missed your question sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry it was a really good one the difference basically I think it was the question maybe you can send it again the difference was about why what's the difference between where had they been and where have they been I think I lost it in the chat the difference is you're asking about a action that happened before another action in the past so did I yeah I used this example sentence where had they been before they arrived at the party is asking about an action that happened before a another past tense action like where where have they been means up until the present mmm so that's the difference between the two up until the present where have they been means up until now and where had they been means up until a past point in time okay I hope that answers your question that's a good one yeah where had they been or where have they been thank you for sending that again yeah I think that I hope that that answers your question where have they been again refers to up until now where had they been refers to a past point in time up until the past point oh my gosh what's an example for had had an example for had had let's see um let's see she had had a good day when she received some terrible news that's a very very kind of vague example sentence so she had had a good day when she received terrible news so that means up until that point in time so her day was good at first and then something bad happened so we use had had when the verb is had plus the verb have so again to review that part had plus past participle verb is used to make past perfect statements when your verb is have you will get had had here and that's totally correct okay I have to finish comes a lot so thank you for your awesome questions I really appreciate your thoughtful questions that is super super cool but I have to finish for today so I will share with you I'll show you the lesson boards one more time in case you want to take a screenshot alright there there so grab your screenshot there I'm going to take them away now and cover next week's lesson next week's lesson will be about how to make guesses about the future making guesses so making predictions about the future I want to give you some more patterns than just I think I think and maybe so I want to cover things that are gonna be a little bit more maybe that will help you express your guesses a little bit more precisely in a little bit more detail so please join me next week July 15th 10:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time that is New York City time if you don't know your local time please use your Google skills I do for those of you who are asking lots of you have asked recently thank you for your interest live lessons are every week depending on your time zone Wednesday night or Thursday morning if you want to make sure to always make like make time for the lesson you can set a notification on youtube or on Facebook to make sure you can join it so I will end there today of course if you missed a lesson it is recorded you can watch this back on Facebook or on YouTube at any time so I will say goodbye thank you so much for liking and sharing this video we really really appreciate it make sure if you are interested to check out the free beginner level course on our website - from the link below the video on youtube or above the video on Facebook I will say goodbye there so thank you for your time this week enjoy the rest of your week and I will see you again at next time bye

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Id: e1Uy-gGoxZk

Length: 38min 45sec (2325 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 08 2020