18. THE PAST PERFECT
| POSITIVE | NEGATIVE | QUESTION |
| I had taken | I hadn’t taken | Had you taken? |
| You/we/they were waiting | You/we/they hadn’t taken | Had you/we/they taken? |
| He/she had taken | He/she hadn’t taken | Had he/she taken? |
USAGE :
The past perfect is used to describe an action which was previous to another action in the past. So it is used when you are talking in the past, and need to refer to an event which happened before.
EXAMPLES :
I really enjoyed my trip to New York. I had never been to the US before.
I hadn’t realized your order was urgent. I will send it off today.
Before the last incident we had already had some quality issues with this machine.
I’d already met Peter before the interview. We worked together briefly in the 2000’s.
Before we changed to this new system, we had always used our own, in-house software.