1.6 Past Perfect Tense

Hello!

Learners,

          In the series of learning tenses, in this article we learn the past perfect tense and forming the questions in the same tense. In order to understand the tense, we have taken a live example from the song. We will learn grammar from a video type of medium from YouTube.

RupertHomes is famous for his work as British-American composer, Single-Song writer and Musician. In this post, we learn from his song "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)"  in 1979.

Source: 10. Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song)

("10. Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song)". 2019. Youtube. Accessed July 7 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TazHNpt6OTo.)

Here, in the beginning

“I was tired of my lady, we´d been together too long”

First, let us understand the formation and correct usage of tense.

Grammar point: 1.6) Past perfect tense:

The usage:

This tense is used to express an activity started in the past and ended in the past before it. When the time order is precise, we do not use this tense.

The Ultimate Guide: Past Perfect Tense (TIme Order)

Formation of the tense:

Subject + had (not) + past participle

Contractions:

Remember that in general speech and informal writing we use contractions of subject+had listed below.

I + had	I’d
We + had	We’d
You + had	You’d
He + had	He’d
She + had	She’d
It + had	It’d

Note:

    -  If there are two tense within one sentence, it always used in the first happened event.

    -  Sometimes, ‘by the time’ phrase is used which almost means ‘before.’

For instance: 

i. When we arrived at the railway station, the train had already left.

Here, in this sentence, ‘the train had already left.’ Happened first.

We can write the sentence another way.

ii. The train had already left when arrived at the railway station.

The sentence looked different but the time order will not change. Also, as we can in the second sentence from punctuation point of view it does not divide by comma.

Now,

From the video,

“I was tired of my lady, we´d been together too long”

Here as we can see the formation of tense is the past perfect tense.

More Examples.

1) When we arrived at the railway station, the train had already left.

2) I had not traveled to India before 1990.

3) We’d written a lot lately.  

Grammar point: 1.6.1) Forming questions in the Past perfect tense:

The Ultimate Guide: Past perfect Tense (Question-Answers)

Forming short answer questions.

Structure:

Had + Subject + Past participle

The Ultimate Guide: Past perfect Tense (Time Oeder with examples)

Referring to the above image.

Question- Had you arrived at the station before the train?

Possible answers

Ans.        - Yes, we had.

Ans.        - No, we hadn’t.

Forming questions answer for more information rather than yes-no:

Structure: Wh-Questions + have/has + Subject + Past participle

Wh-words list:

Who

What

Where

How

Which

The formation of Wh-questions is easy just put Wh-words at the beginning of the sentence. Here is the example,

Structure:

Wh-word + had + Subject + Past participle

Question- What had you done after missed the train?

Ans- We had taken the bus.

Similarly, we can form question-answers in whatever wh-words are.

Go the grammar list for learning more grammar with detailed explanation. If you have any question or suggestion, then write in the comment section below.

-The ultimate guide to learn English Grammar.

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