Questions tagged [past-perfect]
Questions about Past Perfect tense
369
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Infinitives of purpose with the past perfect [closed]
In the sentence:
"There were people everywhere. They thronged the streets, choking the
alleys. They had come in their thousands to see the light show"
I would group the infinitive of ...
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1
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Correct usage of 'had' [closed]
I was recently studying a paragraph in which I came across a sentence, which was below:
The British king, Charles I, had inherited a very difficult financial situation from his father.
However, I ...
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Meaning of the sentence "The thieves had run away when the police arrived."
This is from the Quirk's CGEL section 4.24 - The past perfective:
Adverbials of time position, when used with the past perfective, can
identify either T2 or T3. Placed initially, they often identify ...
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Past perfect when the action is separated from the present by facts that are common knowledge to the speakers but not mentioned
Page 59 of Learner English: A Teacher's Guide to Interference reads:
There is a tense in French which is formed like the English past
perfect, and its usage corresponds generally to the English tense....
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Using the structure "by + time expression + past perfect" to describe a graph
Is the structure "by + time expression + past perfect" suitable for describing a graph regarding an event that we cannot exclusively say that it had happened before the specified time ...
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A case of usage of past perfect tense
I hit this in the "The Making of a Nation" series.
The United States had refused to recognize the government in Moscow after the Bolsheviks took control in 1917.
This sentence seems odd to ...
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2
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How to differentiate the short form of "would" and "had"? [closed]
How do you differentiate:
I'd always longed to see... = I would always longed to see...
VS
I'd always longed to see.. = I had always longed to see..
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Simple Past or Past Perfect - Sequence of Tenses
Could someone help me understand which tense (Simple Past or Past Perfect) would be more appropriate in the following examples, and why?
I knew I asked the right person.
I knew I had asked the right ...
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How to use a past event as the subject of a sentence?
I am not a native speaker. My question in the title arise from an actual sentence I wanted to write. "Phone rang interrupted."
Imagine this timeline for context:
Employee was talking to ...
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Saying "I could have been on time" when still you have some time before the appointment
On a different website I asked which sentence is more proper:
The game starts in 5 minutes. If I had taken that train, I could have been on time.
The game starts in 5 minutes. If I had taken that ...
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Why is past perfect used here?
I came across this God of War video, and heard the following sentence at 1:14:
Where one journey ended, a new had begun.
Grammatically, what I understand from this is that the "new journey"...
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Why is past simple being used in these sentences instead of past perfect? [duplicate]
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 ...
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Past simple and pluperfect with “before”
Which of the following is correct?
“I had learned to sing before I learned to dance.”
“I learned to sing before I had learned to dance.”
“I learned to sing before I learned to dance.”
I think only ...
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Before proving or before being proven [closed]
Today I encountered this sentence.
Before him being proven guilty, everybody thought that he was innocent.
But I think there is another way to write it easily. Please correct me if I am wrong.
...
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Unsure about the usage of Past Perfect Continuous in a specific sentence
Is it correct to use the Past Perfect Continuous form I had never been considering
in the sentence
Before I met you, I had never been considering visiting Italy
?
According to Grammarly,
The past ...
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3
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Perfect Continuous Passive Participle Clause?
Having been being lost in the woods for hours, he was finally found by emergency services.
Does this mean:
After he had been being lost in the woods for hours, he was finally found by emergency ...
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"Would rather" in narrative past
Let's say that we have a sentence like:
He would rather the door didn't open.
Which means that he has a preference that the door wouldn't open. How can we express it in the past? - That he preferred ...
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was... has been vs was... had been
I wrote a sentence by myself as follows:
It WAS acclaimed as a masterpiece that HAD changed the world.
I am confused if the "had changed" here is correct because I intended to say "...
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Why "I already said" is correct? I am confused with using past perfect and already
I have to improve my English, and I live in the USA.
I am confused with using past perfect and past simple after "already".
Is past simple correct after "already"?
I know, some ...
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Using more than one past perfect tense with time clauses and "last time I..."
I know I can express things in many different ways, and that maybe I could find alternative ways to form the sentences below, but I'm just trying to understand the use of the past perfect in certain ...
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Can you use the past perfect from a present reference point?
I often find myself using past perfect in a sort of stylized way that I can't justify logically. I am writing a short description of the Matrix, and what I want to say is:
In the film, a programmer ...
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had vs no had - what is the difference [duplicate]
Under Roth's direction, the press Chamber issued several decrees to domestic news outlets in the weeks leading up to the ceremony.
What if we add a " had " in front of issued ? Will that ...
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Negative Present Perfect
I have a question regarding negative present perfect for past events with effects extending into the present.
Scenario: Just leaving coffee shop with friend #2. “That was fantastic; I haven’t seen ...
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Use of ‘had’ in Indian English
Soon after she encountered the experience while proceeding to New Delhi, the Thoothukudi MP had tweeted, “Today at the airport a CISF officer asked me if I am an Indian, when I asked her to speak to ...
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"I had fallen asleep" vs "I fell asleep" [duplicate]
Which sentence below is grammatically correct?
I didn't answer your questions because I had fallen asleep early last night.
I didn't answer your questions because I fell asleep early last night.
I'...
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Irregular Verbs with Compound Predicates
Are both of these sentences acceptable?
We had manufactured it but gave it to someone else.
We had manufactured it but given it to someone else.
Is there a rule that says the past perfect must be ...
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Is it true that it's OK to omit the pluperfect (past-perfect) in casual speech?
The pluperfect is used to indicate what is relatively earlier than the compared clause. But in conversation I hear people omit it all the time. Examples:
I haven't spoken to the President since the ...
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Past perfect tense and Since
Lenny had slept most of the way since leaving Texas.
I found this sentence from Cambridge Dictionary. I have been taught that you use past perfect tense to emphasize an event in the past that took ...
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Can we use specific time when using past simple with past perfect?
I wonder if it's possible and correct to put a specific time like this.
I had finished my homework at 6 am. before I went to school at 7 am.
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What is the passive voice of a sentence that is structured as 'past perfect' before 'simple past'
For example, how would the sentence below be expressed in the passive voice?
I had completed all tasks before they arrived.
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Past of it'd better be
I was just watching TV and one of the characters in the show said something like "I don't know what happened there, but it'd've better been good".
Realizing that the deconstruction of that ...
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Had had confusion [closed]
1.Last year I had had the idea to buy a new television, but now I'm not sure I want to.
2 Last year I had the idea to buy a new television, but now I'm not sure I want to
Both of these sentences ...
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Past Perfect (Progressive) problem
I was helping my nephew with some homework but this time I reached my limit. I am not quite sure what the correct answer is here or even if there is only one good answer. One has to finish the ...
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Past-perfect tense
Consider the following question:
Monica had dinner at home. She ______ dinner when she ______ home.
(a) ate, came
(b) had eaten, had come
(c) had eaten, came
(d) ate, had come
According to me answer ...
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2
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Past perfect tense
Consider the following question:
The doorbell woke me up. When the doorbell _______________, I _______________ up.
The possible answer for the above statement is:
rang, woke
had rung, woke
had rung, ...
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"...to have been" or "... to having been"?
When I help someone and the person thanks me, instead of saying "You're welcome", I want to express that "I am happy that I was able to help you", but I want to say it with a much ...
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Past Perfect or Past Simple
I want to understand if we need to keep using past perfect in a long sentence. (in speaking and writing english)
For example,
"I want to tell you a story that happened to me in summer. I started ...
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Question about use of Past Perfect Tense
Could you explain the difference between the two sentences in the quote?
Bates threw the grunt into the sky as soon as we'd made vacuum.
One of the surviving grunts grabbed the carcass and jumped ...
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"Have you seen him recently?" or "Did you see him recently?" [closed]
Have you seen him recently?
or
Did you see him recently?
Which of these is correct?
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The past perfect use. Is this sentence correct?
Now she knew he would be unstoppable. That day, there had been no doubts inside of him when he had wielded his sword.
Is this correct use of the past perfect tense in the second sentence, considering ...
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Why past tense and not past perfect
I recently came across the following passage, which starts like this:
As my sister began telling me about the scorpion in her bed that stung her as she slumbered, I could feel my eyes popping out of ...
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1
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Verb tense confusion - how to correctly use past perfect in a past tense narrative
Okay, scenario: In a novel set in narrative past tense, there's a sentence, "We had become friends when nobody had liked him and it had seemed no one ever would." Is the past perfect being ...
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Past perfect continuous with verb "fall" as the second condition
Is "fall" in the sentence below in its correct conjugation?
"Had this been related to an existing cases, or fall within the supported thresholds, we would have..."
"fallen&...
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Are "had served" and "had been serving" both acceptable in the situation?
I have encountered this question in my test,
The model answer is "had been serving",
but I have written down "had served"
A)Mr.James had been serving this school for ten years when ...
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2
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Why the shift to past perfective when the whole sentence is in the present?
I was looking at Collins' definition of double-cross:
If someone you trust double-crosses you, they do something which harms you instead of doing something they had promised to do.
So we have double-...
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"they had renovated" vs "had been renovating"
How can I understand the sentence 1b?
1 a When I last went to Moscow, they had renovated St Basil's Cathedral.
b When I last went to Moscow, they had been renovating St Basil's Cathedral
The ...
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Past perfect in reported statements of complex sentence
If the sentence is reported statements, whether both parts of the sentence have to be in Past Perfect or only the first one?
For example:
"I had loved her for more than half of my life," she ...
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Would you say, "She was quiet after she'd been back from school," or "She was quiet after she'd gotten back from school"? [closed]
I don't know if these two choices are just preference or not.
On a side note, would it sound better if you say "ever since" or "since" in place of the word "after"?
...
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The first paragraph of "Leviathan Wakes" is driving me crazy. What do you think about it?
I feel like the author gets his tenses all mixed up as soon as he finishes the prologue. At the very least, the first paragraph is difficult to parse. Check it out:
A hundred and fifty years before, ...
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The Past Perfect in the narrative set in the present
Have been reading a lot of fanfics lately, so what follows is quotations from unedited stories published on AO3. These are real excerpts from the writings of the US and the UK authors:
She looks up ...
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