Questions tagged [past-perfect]
Questions about Past Perfect tense
362
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Why is it right to use the Past Perfect tense, not the Past Perfect Continuous in this sentence? [migrated]
I have stumbled across the following sentence in a book:
I hadn't read a fashion magazine for ages.
According to the rule, we use the Past perfect continuous when we want to emphasize how long the ...
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10
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Using "I wish" to express regret or desire [migrated]
I would like to know which of the following sentences can be considered similar in meaning to this one :
**
I regret that teenangers are treated in a bad way
**
I wish teenagers WERE NOT treated in ...
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1
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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
answers
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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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Past perfect tense while talking about a specific year in the past
Is this a correct use of past perfect tense?
"In 2000, I had finished learning Mandarin. I was then planning to learn Cantonese."
Here is the exact timeline: I finished learning Mandarin in ...
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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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245
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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 came across a passage. Passage happens in the past ,and one of two characters is telling a story that happened before that day. That’s why I thought the story part of the passage should have been in ...
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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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1
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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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2
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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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1
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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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1
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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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Past Perfect Sentence structure for yes/no questions [closed]
Which of these is correct and why?
Had not you seen this movie before?
Had you not seen this movie before?
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A question concerning Past Perfect continuous
He had been drinking milk out the cartoon when mom walked into the kitchen
I'm reading past perfect continuous in my grammar book and the rule says it is used for an that began before a certain point ...
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2
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Past perfect or present perfect?
We didn't go to the party last night because we have had a fever
Or
We didn't got to the party last night because we had had a fever
I know the past perfect describes an completed before a certain ...
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0
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Present perfect or past perfect with Already
Look at the sentence :
• When we got to the theater, the play (already start)
how should I write it properly?
• When we got to the theater, the play already has started.
Or
•When we got to the theater,...
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1
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A question concerning Past Perfect Tense [closed]
I met him in London in 1996. I had seen him last five years before.
This is an example given for Present Perfect Tense in my grammar book. Does the sentence mean the last time the speaker had met the ...
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**Primary English**Tony thought that his mother <has>/<had> already gone to work
Could any English master please help explain why the underline is HAS rather than HAD? Everything happened in the past, so I thought we should use had. Thanks a lot.
Tony loves dogs. He has two dogs. ...
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Simple past or past perfect?
Is this sentence grammatically correct?
I had felt a strange panic as I was parted from it. (Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller)
It seems rather strange to me to pair the past perfect with the simple ...
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Using past simple tense after past perfect
When X happened, I had not taken my pills because I hadn't had them
with me.
When X happened, I had not taken my pills because I didn't have them
with me.
Is the second sentence ...
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