Past Simple describes a finished action in the past: Ulugh Beg built an observatory in Samarkand in the 1420s. Past Perfect (had + past participle) shows an action that happened before another past action: By the time he became ruler of Samarkand, he had already studied astronomy for years. Compare: When we arrived, the lecture had started (it started first, then we came); When we arrived, the lecture started (we came, then it started). Past Perfect often goes with by, by the time, before, after, already and when. To recognise parts of speech look at endings: -tion, -ment, -er (nouns); -ize, -ate (verbs); -ous, -ful, -al (adjectives). Many words belong to two classes: a test (noun) – to test (verb).
Worked examples
Alisher Navoi wrote poems in Chagatai Turkic. Before he was thirty, he had already become famous as a poet.
Al-Beruni travelled to India in the 11th century. He had learned Sanskrit before he wrote his famous book about the country.
Class activity
“Who am I?”: a student writes four sentences about a famous person (at least one in Past Perfect: Before I was twenty, I had ...) and the class guesses who it is.
Practice
1
Choose: When the guests arrived, we ___ (already / finish) dinner, so we just had tea.
had already finished
2
Join the two actions with “before” and Past Perfect: He learned Arabic. Then he read the old books.
He had learned Arabic before he read the old books.
3
Which part of speech is each word: invention, famous, organize?
invention – noun; famous – adjective; organize – verb
4
Why do we say “When I got to the station, the train had left” and not “the train left”?
Because the train left first. Past Perfect shows that this action happened before the other past action (my arrival).