Speaker 1: Did you ever wish you could add a little more
excitement and interest to your English conversations? Maybe you'd like
to add some color and excitement to your English writing,
especially when it comes to storytelling. Today, let's take a
deep dive into how the past perfect tents might be
just the right spice for your next English dish.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast coming to you from
New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast Episode seven fifty four,
The past perfect Tents. Do you have a request for
a topic here, feel free to send me a message
at my Happy English and let me know. Today we're
going to take a journey into the fascinating world of
the past perfect tense. Hey, don't worry, this isn't as
complicated as it may sound. In fact, mastering this grammar
can add wonderful layers to your English conversations and writing.
What's fascinating about the past perfect tense is it's like
a secret passageway in a story. It lets you move
around in time without you know, interrupting the flow of
the story. You can think of the past perfect as
a way to create flashbacks in your storytelling. The past
perfect is like a time machine for your words. Imagine
you're reading a mystery novel and the detective walks into
a suspect's house. The sentence says, when the detective arrived,
the suspect eight dinner. That sentence seems like the suspect
waited to eat until after seeing the detective. Right, But
how about this one. When the detective arrived the suspect
had already eaten dinner. This tells us that the meal
was already finished when the detective walked in. The past
perfect lets us know what happened before the present scene.
Imagine this, You wake up on a cold December morning.
You open the curtains. The sky is clear, but the
ground is covered in fresh snow. When you woke up,
the snow had fallen and the sky had already cleared up.
It's easy to see the order of events with the
past perfect. So you can tell your friend, when I
woke up this morning, the snow had fallen and the
sky I had already cleared up. See, the past perfect
is not only convenient, but not as scary as you
may have thought. And I know what you're thinking, Oh, Michael,
grammar is hard to learn. Well, here's some good news.
Forming the past perfect isn't complicated at all. You simply
take had and added to the past participle of your
main verb. You can say things like had finished, had eaten,
had gone, and so on. When I arrived at the party,
Jack had already gone, and thankfully dessert hadn't been served
by the time I got there. Here are a few
scenes from some classic movies that use the past perfect.
In Titanic, Rose had stood at the front of the
ship when Jack found her. In Forrest Gump, Forrest had
run across America several times before deciding to go home.
In Star Wars, Luke had never flown an X wing
before he joined the rebel attack on the Death Star.
In all of these examples, we avoid time travel confusion
because we know which came first and which was next.
The past perfect tense introduces which came first? Easy peasy,
right now, Let's check out one other common situation where
using the past perfect tense is incredibly useful for your
English showing cause and effect. The past perfect is a
master at showing us how past actions led to later results.
Donna loved art and wanted to get better at painting.
She wanted to become an artist. Then she decided to
move to Paris. There's a lot of information in three
long sentences. You could simply say that Donna moved to
Paris because she had always dreamed of becoming an artist.
Short and sweet Tommy aced the exam because he had
studied hard for weeks because he had missed the bus.
George was late for his job interview. Poor George. If
he had gotten up earlier, he wouldn't have missed the bus.
But for sure you didn't miss the bus. In terms
of this grammar point, keep in mind the best way
to remember this grammar or any other word or phrase
in English is to take that grammar word or phrase,
write it in a sentence that's true for you or
true in your world, and then memorize your sentences. Hey,
did you know that you can get the chance to
practice this kind of English with me directly? Yeah. You
can get more practice using your English when you join
my podcast Learner's Study Group. There you can make new
international friends. Join us for live group lessons every week
where we practice these podcasts lessons together. Plus you get
access to the PDF, transcript and audio download for every
Happy English podcast in the past and in the future.
And on top of that, each episode has exercises where
you can practice this English point with speaking and writing
checked by me. To learn more, just visit Myhappy English
dot com and choose podcast lesson seven fifty four. Remember,
learning another language is not easy, but it's not impossible,
and I'm here to help you on your journey.
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