- In this lesson, we're going to look at the past perfect. The past perfect describes an action that started in the past and stopped at some other point in the past, and you're describing it now from the present.

Let's start with the picture. Something happened in the past, then something else happened in the past after it, and here you are in the present telling the story. We call that first event, the past past. The earlier event is the one that takes the past perfect.

Now, let's build the form. The past perfect starts with had. Then comes the past participle. Leave becomes left. Buy becomes bought. Go becomes gone.

Finish becomes finished. Each second word there is a past participle. Now, look at one of them more closely. Go has two past forms. Went is the simple past. You use went by itself.

Had gone is the past perfect. Gone is the past participle. So after had, choose gone and never went. We will look at participles again at the end of this group. Here is our first sentence. Until Mary studied abroad, she had never left the United States.

She had never left the United States. That is the earlier event and it uses had plus the past participle left. And studied is the simple past. Let's put both on a timeline. All the years before, Mary had never left the United States.

Then, in one of those years, she studied abroad, and here we are in the present telling you about it. The earlier event is the past past. Now, let's try a second sentence. I had bought a used vacuum cleaner, but returned it after it began to eat up pieces of carpet.

What a bad vacuum cleaner. Had bought is the earlier event, the past perfect. Returned is the later event, the simple past. This pattern repeats in every example. The earlier event takes had plus the past participle. The later event takes the simple past.

She had never left and then she studied. I had bought it and then I returned it. The second event is in the simple past. Here is one more sentence. After I had gone to the movies, I met up with my friends for coffee.

You watch the movie from three to five. At six, you met your friends. So had gone is the earlier event and met is the simple past. Now, let's look at the last sentence. By the time you called, I had finished my homework. Had finished is the earlier event and called is the simple past.

Notice that the later event comes first in this sentence. Finished is the past participle of finish. So when should you use this tense? Use the past perfect when you have two events and both of them are finished. Event one happened and finished.

Then, event two happened and finished. The past perfect continuous mixes this tense with the progressive, words like until, after, by the time, and already often appear in these sentences. Let's put them together.

Mary had never left and then she studied. I had bought the vacuum cleaner and then I returned it. I had gone to the movies and then I met my friends. I had finished my homework and then you called. Every pair follows the same pattern. Here are the two rules.

The earlier event takes had plus the past participle. The later event takes the simple past. Together, they show which thing happened first. This one is tricky even for native speakers, so keep reading and writing and it will start to feel natural.