The ‘perfect’ tenses are the most commonly misused of all the tenses in English. Here, I will look at the ‘past perfect’ tense, its uses and the common errors associated with it.  

Sequence of Events in the Past

The main use for the past perfect is to talk about the "past of the past", to go back to an earlier point in time when we are already talking about the past:

When I arrived at 10.15, the meeting had already started.
I had just finished watching the weather forecast when it started to snow.

Note that the tense is formed by using ‘had’+ the past participle.

In the first example, if you had said "When I arrived the meeting started", this would mean that everyone had waited for you before starting the meeting, rather than going ahead without you. Therefore, in other words, we can say that the past perfect talks about the first of one or more events in the past.

The use of the past perfect has nothing to do with distance in time: it can refer to a few minutes ago, or a few million years ago.

Used in ‘reported speech’

When giving information to another person about what someone has said. For example:

He told me that he had seen someone suspicious entering the building.

The owner mentioned that he had contacted the management office.

Common Errors With Past Perfect - Unnecessary Use

A common error is to use the past perfect tense unnecessarily to refer to past events.

X   Yes, I had already given them my reply.

In the above example, the past perfect is used unnecessarily instead of the present perfect, perhaps because had given seems more ‘past’ than have given.

X   Several years ago, we had sold fax machines, but we don’t any more.

Here, the past simple sold is sufficient (even though we sold fax machines is before we don’t any more) because you are not comparing two past time.

Dr English
Workplace English Training E-Platform