PAST PERFECT

 

The past perfect is a tense that is used to talk about an event that was completed before another action or event took place in the past. Usually, the simple past tense is used together with the past perfect.

 

Subject / Pronoun + Had + participle verb + Complement.

Marianne had published a book of poems before she graduated from high school.

 The kids had done their homework prior we arrived home.

The past perfect takes us back into the past. Take a look at the following example:

• By the time we arrived home, the kids had already gone to bed, had taken a shower and had done their homework.

In the example above we can see that  the closests event to the present is; "we arrived home", but then the rest of the events take us back to past.

The same example can be written using simple past but this change would give a different meaning to the above example.

• Before we arrived home the kids did their homework, took a shower, and went to bed.

Changing the tense to the past tense also changes the meaning of what is expressed in the above statement. In this example events occur in chronological order, one after another. Still the event of arriving home is the closest event to the present.