We will use the verb 'eat' (an irregular verb) to illustrate the difference between past tense and past perfect tense.Introductory grammar notes:The past tense ofeatisate. The past participle (used for forming the 'past perfect') iseaten.PAST TENSE: The 'past tense' ('Past Simple') form is used to say what happened/finished in a time before now.e.g. 'Yesterday Iatethree big bars of chocolate.'PAST PERFECT TENSE: The 'past perfect' tense is used to show that an action had already finished before something else that also happened in the past. In other words, there are two events in the past, and one happened before the other.PAST PERFECT FORM:had+ (past participle).e.g., 'I was very ill yesterday afternoon. I think this was because Ihad eatenthree bars of chocolate at lunch time!'Notice thattwothings are mentioned as happening yesterday. First (in time), I ate three bars of chocolate, and later I was ill.In this case there is possibly a causal relationship between the two events, but this isn't always so when the past perfect is used.e.g. 'Ihadonly justputthe washing out when it started to rain!'It is extremely unlikely that putting the washing out to dry actually caused it to rain! However, notice that there are againtwo events,one following the other, i.e. (i) the washing was put out. (ii) it started to rain.SUMMARY OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAST (SIMPLE) TENSE AND PAST PERFECT TENSE
- The 'past simple' relates to a finished event in the past.
- The 'past perfect' form (had+past participle) is used when there aretwo eventsin the past, one of which occurred before the other.
