The Past Perfect

The past perfect Tense:

We don't use the past perfect a lot in English, but it is useful, and it sounds very good if you can use it correctly. Also, it's really easy to make - just the past simple of 'have' and the past participle.

The positive - make it with 'had' + the past participle (usually made by adding 'ed' to the infinitive, but a few verbs have irregular past participles):
(Also, here's some help if you are not sure how to pronounce '-ed' at the end of a verb).

• I had been (I'd been)
• You had gone (you'd gone)
• She had met (she'd met)
• He had played (he'd played)
• It had rained (it'd rained)
• We had bought (we'd bought)
• They had studied (they'd studied)

The short form for 'had' is 'd.
(Be careful not to confuse it with 'would'. Would is followed by the infinitive - 'I'd go', whereas had is followed by the past participle - 'I'd gone').
For the negative just add 'not':

• I had not been (I hadn't been)
• You had not gone (you hadn't gone)
• She had not met (she hadn't met)
• He had not played (he hadn't played)
• It had not rained (it hadn't rained)
• We had not bought (we hadn't bought)
• They had not studied (they hadn't studied).

And to make a 'yes / no' question put 'had' before the subject:

• Had I come?
• Had you eaten?
• Had she gone?
• Had it rained?
• Had he studied?
• Had we met?
• Had they left?

For 'wh' questions put the question word at the beginning:

• When had I come?
• Why had you eaten?
• Where had she gone?
• When had it rained?
• Why had he studied?
• How had we met?
• When had they left?

Past Perfect Use:

We use the past perfect tense fairly often in English.

1: A completed action before something else in the past.

• When we arrived, the film had started. (= first the film started, then later we arrived)

2: To explain or give a reason for something in the past.

• I'd eaten dinner so I wasn't hungry.
• It had snowed in the night, so the bus didn't arrive.

3: Stative verbs only: something that started in the past and continued up to another action in the past.

• When he graduated, he had been in London for six years.
  
  (= he arrived in London six years before he graduated and lived there continuously until he graduated, or even longer)

4: As part of the third conditional.

 

If I had known you were ill, I would have visited you.