Past perfect - introductory lesson

the auxiliary verbs (pomocné sloveso) "have" + the main verb in past participle form (the third column of the verbs)

ex: "I have been to London three times."

"She has been living in Prague since she was born."

"Have you ever seen lions?"

"We haven't tried this game yet!"

when we talk about something in the past but we don't know when it happened ("I have been there!" - we don't know when, but we know it has been in the past)

when there is some present result of something that happened in the past ("I have lost my keys!" = I still don't have them)

news/recent events ("The Queen has just given a speech." - often used with "just/yet/already/recently")

unfinished time (something, that has not finished yet): life experience, today/this week/this month/... ("I haven't seen her this week.")

when we talk about "how long" something has been ("I've known Josh for three years.")

the auxiliary verb (pomocné sloveso) "had" (just "have" in the past, see?)

+ the main verb in past participle form (the third column of the verbs - just the same as present perfect!)

ex: She had just finished her exam when the timer went off.

When we arrived, the film had started.

! we don't use -s in the third person singular - don't forget, we use that only in present tenses ;) now we are talking about past

You can see, that past perfect is often used in combination with past simple... why, you may ask?

from the previous picture we can now see, that PAST PERFECT is used in the same situations as present perfect, but in the past... easy, right?

Let's study some examples: