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I'm doing an Anki Deck that consists of "Advanced English Grammar" and I don't understand why in examples below I can't use the form I'm suggesting, but instead have to use the form that is indicated in the sentence.

  1. I helped James move house this week and he sent me a big bunch of flowers to say 'thank you'. Why is it "helped" instead of "I had helped"?

  2. My mother phoned me three times this morning and then this afternoon she came round to my house. Why "phoned" and not "had phoned"?

  3. I was really surprised to hear that Francesco got his job through a social networking site. Why not "had gotten his job"?

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  • 1., for example, implies more or less immediate succession of the sending of flowers following the helping of James to move house, i.e. there is no intervening event, so the perfect would be redundant here.
    – BillJ
    Commented Apr 15, 2022 at 11:54
  • I see my comments were deleted but I also explained that you need to include the reason why you don't understand the answers and tell us (for example) what the differences are between the simple past and the past perfect.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Apr 15, 2022 at 12:17
  • @Mari-LouA past perfect is "had done", past is "did". I don't understand why I have to use one over the other in these cases. I understand that past perfect you have to use when you did a thing in a past and stopped doing it, therefore not sure why in these examples past simple is used when the thing that the person was doing had been finished "helped" "phoned".
    – englishlearn2
    Commented Apr 15, 2022 at 12:23
  • The older question is related but the answers are not what I would define "great". I suggested including the research in the question and explaining why you were confused. Next time, don't forget!
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Apr 15, 2022 at 15:00

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  1. I helped James move house this week and he sent me a big bunch of flowers to say 'thank you'.

Look at the sequence of events in Q1.

1st: I helped John move house this week.
2nd: John sent me flowers as a thank you gift

According to the sequence of events, it would make sense to make the first verb in the past perfect tense, the act of helping a friend move house obviously occurred before receiving the flowers.

  • I had helped James move house this week and he sent me a big bunch of flowers to say 'thank you'.

However, the order of events listed match the sequence.
A) I helped John move house
B) (then / and) I received a bunch of flowers.

There is no need to use the past perfect in the first clause as the past perfect is normally used to clarify the sequence of events, that is when a past event precedes another past event.

If I wanted to use the past perfect, but there's no reason why I should, a better solution would be to change the order and the conjunction used to unite the two different clauses.

    1. John sent me a big bunch of flowers to say 'thank you' [why] as / [when] after I had helped him move house.

This also explains why the sentence in Q2 is grammatical and appropriate.

  1. [1st] My mother phoned me three times this morning [2nd] and then this afternoon she came round to my house.

Closely related:
What are the real rules for choosing between the simple past and past perfect when both actions are in the past?
Shouldn't the first verb in “she died before I was born” be in the past perfect?

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