Forward or back
Read your six sentences to a partner in a random order. They say forward or back for each, without seeing the page.
If they get one wrong, find out which word misled them. It is usually the auxiliary.
Six contracted forms. ’d can be two different words. Match each to what it must be.
Needed, optional, wrong
Three groups. Read them aloud and look at what makes them different.
Group one — needed: When I arrived, she had left. · By the time we got there, they had closed. · I did not know that they had cancelled it.
Group two — optional: After I had finished, I went out. / After I finished, I went out. · Before she had spoken, I knew. / Before she spoke, I knew.
Group three — wrong: I had gone to the airport and then I had checked in and then I had waited. · Yesterday I had missed my train.
Four questions about the three groups.
1. In group two, why is the past perfect optional?
2. In group one, what happens if you use the past simple instead?
3. Why is the first group-three sentence wrong?
4. Yesterday I had missed my train. What is missing?
The form, and the four signals
Past perfect: the whole form
| Positive | Negative | Question | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All persons | I had left · I’d left | I hadn’t left | Had you left? |
With already | She had already gone. | — | Had she already gone? |
With never … before | I had never seen it before. | — | Had you never seen it? |
With just | They had just left. | — | — |
| Duration | I had been waiting for an hour. | I hadn’t been waiting long. | How long had you been waiting? |
| Reported speech | He said he had already eaten. | — | — |
Four words that call for it. When you hear yourself say one of these, check whether the clause beside it is reaching back.
by the time — almost always takes it. By the time we arrived, they had closed.already — in a past context, takes it. She had already gone.never … before — takes it. I had never flown before.when — the dangerous one. It does not state the order, so the tense has to.
And two that make it optional: after and before already give the order, so English lets you drop it.
One to four words per gap. Some gaps need the past perfect and some need the past simple. Ask what each clause is earlier than.
By the time I got to the platform the train . I the whole way from the office and it no difference at all. A guard told me the timetable in September, which I . After I for an hour I gave up and got a bus.
One step, not two. The past perfect marks a step back from the story. It does not stack.
I had gone to the airport and then I had checked in and then I had waited. → I had gone to the airport, checked in, and waited. One had opens the sequence; the rest follow it.
And once the story starts moving forward again, it goes straight back to the past simple. The perfect is a detour, not a road.
Eight sentences. Some are missing the tense, some over-apply it, and one is correct.
1. By the time we arrived, everyone left.
2. Yesterday I had lost my wallet.
3. I had packed, I had locked the door and I had left at six.
4. She told me she already ate.
5. I had never been to Greece before that summer.
6. When we got in, the fire had went out.
7. After I had eaten, I had gone to bed.
8. He didn’t know that the shop closed at four.
Earlier than what?
Six clauses. Put them into the order they would be told — the discovery first, then what it reaches back to.
- Nobody had contacted us because nobody was left to contact us.
- The hotel had no record of the booking.
- I have booked directly ever since, which is not a coincidence.
- It turned out the agency had gone out of business in June.
- They found us a room on the fourth floor at twice the price.
- We had paid in full in February and had the receipt on my phone.
One to four words per gap. Some reach back, some move forward.
The taxi driver at an address that was not a hotel. It was a house, and the woman who the door of us. I the booking three weeks earlier and a confirmation with that address on it. It out that the street had two numbers eleven, and the hotel its sign the previous winter.
Earlier than what?
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 3 minutes each
Six discoveries each, ninety seconds in total. Real ones, from any part of your life.
For each, one past simple sentence of discovery and one had sentence underneath it.
- Discovery first: I got there and… · I opened it and… · She told me and…
- Then reach back: …they had already… · …somebody had… · …nobody had…
- Your partner asks one question each time: earlier than what?
- If you cannot answer that question, the past perfect was not needed.
The question is the exercise. Earlier than what? is the only test this tense needs, and asking it out loud six times is what makes it automatic.
Missing and over-applied
Four sentences from the task. Fix each and say which way it went wrong.
1. I opened the box and somebody took the manual out.
2. Last week I had failed my driving test.
3. She had told me and then I had rung my mother.
4. When I got home the parcel had came.
One test
Three questions.
1. What is the test for whether the past perfect is right?
2. After which conjunction is the past perfect optional?
3. She’d eaten — which word is ’d?
Before next lesson. Write down ten words you would need to tell a travel story — places, arrangements, problems. Say each one aloud and mark where you put the stress.
Next lesson is about that mark. It is the single most audible thing about a Brazilian speaker’s English, and it is a pattern rather than a list.