The Past Perfect

You use the past perfect simple (had + past participle) to talk about a situation
that occurred before a particular time in the past.

You use the past perfect tense when you are looking back from a point in past
time, and you are concerned with the effects of something which happened at an
earlier time in the past.

I apologized because I had forgotten my book again.

He felt much happier once he had found a new job.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones would have come if we had invited them.

You also use past perfect when you are thinking of a time which started earlier in
the past but was still continuing, in which case you use past perfect continuous
(had+ been+ present participle ; note that present participle is V+- ing).

I was about twenty. I had been studying French for a couple of years.
He hated games and had always managed to avoid children’s parties.

The Past Perfect Simple (had +past participle)

Affirmative: I had seen you two days before that.

Negative: He hadn’t had any friends at that time in his life.
Interrogative: Had she seen the pictures?
Negative- interrogative: Hadn’t you told him the truth yet?
USE
1. to express a past action that took place before a past moment or another
action in the past. It is the past equivalent of the present perfect. Note the
use of when, before, now, already, yet that, as soon as, and after in some
sentences containing past perfect.

The boy explained that he had seen somebody in the house.

When father came home, Dan had already done his homework.
2. to express duration up to a certain moment in the past

By the time the rain started, we had dug the whole garden.

3. with just, already, hardly/ barely/scarcely and no sooner to show that the
past action was finished a little time before another past action.
She told us that her bother had just left.
 No sooner had I entered the room when I heard someone calling me.
 He had hardly repaired his car that someone set it on fire.
4. with since and for when the point of reference is in the past:

1
In 1999 I had been a researcher for ten years already.
We hadn’t seen each other since Christmas.
5. In Indirect Speech, to express a past tense or a present perfect form of
Direct Speech:
”I saw this film last week,” Nick said.
Nick said he had seen that film a week before.

”I have never visited Warsaw,” the young lady explained.

The young lady explained she had never visited Warsaw before.

6. to express a past conditional in a conditional clause:

I would have given him my ticket if I had met him.

If only you hadn’t lied to her!

7. to express an unfulfilled wish:

I wish (wished) I had not missed the plane.

8. after had/would rather (when the subject is different) or as if/ as though:

She spoke about the stranger as if she had known him.

9. to express a future action that takes place before another action expressed
by the Future-in–the-Past:
I told my friend that I would lend him the book after I had read it.

10. with such verbs as: to expect, to intend, to hope, to mean, to think, to express
past hope, intention etc. which was not fulfilled:
I had hoped to find her in the crowd but I wasn’t able to.
He had meant to meet me at the airport but failed to get there on time.

The Past Perfect Continuous (had+ been+ present participle)

1. It’s used to underline the continuity of a past action up to a past moment or

just before it.
 I had been waiting for them for an hour already when they finally arrived.
2. In Indirect Speech, to express a past tense continuous or a present perfect
continuous from Direct Speech:
”I have been practising Martial Arts for seven years,” he said.
He said that he had been practising Martial Arts for seven years.