Past Perfect Tense in English Grammar

What is the past perfect simple tense?

The past perfect tense, also known as the pluperfect tense, is the ‘past of the past’; it is used for actions that took place before another point in the past.

It is often used together with the simple past tense.

The past perfect is formed with the auxiliary verb had + the past participle of the main verb.

Learn how to conjugate the past perfect tense in English grammar with Lingolia, then test your knowledge in the interactive exercises.

Contents

Example

When Naomi arrived, the party had already started.

She was disappointed because she had missed the birthday cake.

If Naomi had arrived earlier, she wouldn’t have missed it.

How to use the past perfect simple

Use the past perfect simple to describe an action that took place before another point or action in the past. The second action is expressed in the simple past.

Example:
When Naomi arrived, the party had already started.
action 1: beginning of the party; action 2: Naomi’s arrival

The past perfect simple also appears in third conditional if-clauses.

Example:
If Naomi had arrived earlier, she wouldn’t have missed the birthday cake.

Signal words for the past perfect tense in English

Signal words help us to know which tense to use in a sentence. The signal words for the past progressive are listed below:

  • already, just
  • never, not yet
  • once, until that day

To Note

Some of the signal words for the past perfect simple are the same as those for the present perfect simple.

The difference is that the signal words for the past perfect refer to a moment in the past that took place prior to another past action.

How to conjugate the past perfect simple

To conjugate the past perfect tense in English, we take: had + past participle (form 3 of the verb).

The table below shows the conjugation of affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences in the English past perfect tense.

Affirmative Negative Question
all forms are the same
 I had played/spoken I had not played/spoken Had I played/spoken?

Past Participle – Spelling Rules

Regular verbs are normally conjugated by adding -ed to the base infinitive form of a verb. However, there are some exceptions to this rule:

  • Then a verb ends with in -e , we only add -d.
    Example:
    love – loved (not: loveed)
  • The final consonant is doubled after a short stressed vowel.
    Example:
    admit – admitted
  • The final consonant -l is always doubled after a vowel in British English but not in American English.
    Example:
    travel – travelled (British), traveled (American)
  • A -y at the end of the word is replaced by an -i.
    Example:
    hurry – hurried

Learn the difference between the irregular past participles of the verb go with our page on been to/gone to.

Contractions

Contractions are a combination of certain pronouns, verbs and the word not.

The table below shows the contractions for the past perfect tense.

Long Form Contraction Example
had …’d they’d
had not* … hadn’t I hadn’t

*Negated Contractions

We can also use the contraction …’d not in negative sentences, although it is less common than hadn’t.

Example:
She hadn’t realised the time. → She’d not realised the time.

Unlike hadn’t, the contraction …’d not can only follow a pronoun and not a noun.

Example:
Naomi’d not realised the time. → Naomi hadn’t realised the time.