Speaker 1: By the time I got to the party, Jack had
already gone home. The past perfect tense. Have you ever
studied this grammar and thought when do people actually use this?
Maybe you learned something like the past perfect is the
past of the past, and technically that's true, but that
rule is not very helpful in real conversation, because the
truth is, Native speakers don't walk around thinking about grammar rules.
We use certain grammar patterns because they help us explain
time relationships in a story or conversation, and the past
perfect is one of those patterns. So in today's podcast
English Lesson, we're going to look at several very practical
situations where Native speakers naturally use the past perfect in
everyday English.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast coming to you from
New York City, and here's your English teacher, Michael Paul.
Speaker 1: Righty, 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 one thousand and three.
Practical uses of the past perfect in Everyday English. So
first let's take a look at the grammar pattern. The
past perfect tense is had plus the past participle. And
before you freak out too much. The past participle is
the third form of the verb like go, went, gone,
gone is the past participle, or eat ate eaten or
see saw scene or finish finished, finished, gone, eaten scene finished.
Those are all the past participles, and they follow the
verb had like this, I had finished, she had left,
they had already eaten. Check this out. Yesterday the weather
forecast said that it was going to snow overnight. Well,
when I woke up this morning, I opened the curtains,
and sure enough, the snow had fallen and the sky
had already cleared up. Four things happened in the past
in that sentence. I woke up, I opened the curtains,
the snow had fallen, and the sky had cleared up.
Listen again and think about what came. First, I woke up,
I opened the curtains, The snow had fallen, the sky
had cleared up. Got it. The snow had fallen, then
the sky had cleared up. Then I woke up and
opened the curtains. So first it snowed, then the sky
cleared up. Then I woke up, and then I opened
the curtains. We used the past perfect tense when we
need to show what had already happened before another moment
in the past, and once you understand that idea, the
past perfect becomes much easier to use. When I woke
up this morning, I opened the curtains, and sure enough,
the snow had fallen and the sky had already cleared up.
I know that sounds a little bit like a line
from a novel. So let's look at some everyday situations
that we use this grammar in English conversation. First, we
often use the past perfect when explaining the reason for
something that happened. Imagine you show up at work looking exhausted,
and your coworker asks, oh, are you okay? You look tired.
You might say, yeah, I'm tired because I had stayed
up too late last night. Or maybe you missed your
train and someone asks what happened? You could say, I
missed the train because I had left the house too late.
In situations like this, the past perfect explains the earlier
cause of a past event, and you'll often hear this
pattern past event because past perfect reason Like Jack was
stressed out this morning because he had forgotten about his
wife's birthday. That's very natural English. Another common use of
the past perfect is when we're telling a story and
giving background information. Imagine you're telling a story about running
into an old friend. You could say something like this,
I bumped into one of my college friends yesterday when
we were talking at the train station. We realized we
hadn't seen each other in almost ten years. Or maybe
you're telling a story about trying a new restaurant. You
might say something like, when the food arrived, I realized
I had forgotten to mention that I don't like celery.
Forgetting to mention that you don't like Celery happened before
the food arrived. Right. This is a great place for
the past perfect tense, and this happens all the time
when people tell stories. Another very common situation is when
we want to say that something happened before another moment
in the past, and you'll often hear the past perfect
with expressions like when, by the time and after, like
I left the office late, and when I got to
the station the train had already left. Or by the
time we got to the restaurant, they had closed, or
after I got home, I realized I had left my
wallet at the restaurant. This grammar helps make the timeline clear.
We also use the past perfect when talking about experience
before a certain time in the past, like before I
moved moved to Japan, I had never tried ramen, Or
when Nick was telling me about his trip to Italy,
he said that at that point in his life he
had never traveled outside the country. This is common when
people talk about life experiences or big changes. Here's another
very natural situation when we realized something too late, Like
I called one of my friends and when a woman answered,
I realized I had dialed the wrong number, or like this,
what a disaster my last vacation was. I booked the hotel,
but then I realized I had chosen the wrong date.
Notice what's happening here. First, something happens, and then you
suddenly realized something had already gone wrong earlier. That's another
natural mode for the past perfect. And finally, we use
the past perfect when talking about regret or reflection, and
this often happens with wish or if like I wish
I had studied harder in college, or if I had
known she was a vegetarian, I wouldn't have taken her
to a steakhouse for dinner. This structure often appears when
people talk about mistakes, regrets, or the lessons they learned. Okay,
let's recap. In everyday English, Native speakers usually use the
past perfect for three main reasons. First, to explain the
reason for something that happened in the past, like I
was really tired this morning because I had stayed up
too late last night. Second, to give background information to
a story. When I saw her at the train station,
I realized I hadn't seen her in almost ten years.
And Third, to show that something had already happened before
another moment in the past, like after I got home,
I realized I had left my phone at the restaurant.
That's it. It's not about complicated grammar rules. It's about
helping the listener understand the timeline of events. And here's
something really important to remember. Native speakers don't always use
the past perfect perfectly in casual conversation. We often simplify
things and just use the simple past, like when I
got home, I realized I left my phone at the restaurant.
But when and the order of events matters, the past
perfect becomes very useful, like when I arrived, I realized
I had forgotten my keys. So here's your challenge. The
next time you're telling a story in English, try adding
one sentence using the past. Perfect That small change makes
your story clearer and more natural. And keep in mind
the best way to remember English like this and any
other word or phrase in English, is to take that
word or phrase, write it in a sentence that's true
for you or true in your world, and then memorize
your sentences. Hey, thanks for listening, and 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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