2019-12-06
5 分钟Hi there.
This is Harry, and welcome to our podcast.
And for this particular podcast, I'm going to answer a question that has been asked of me by some of the listeners, and it's to explain how and when we use the past perfect tense.
It can be quite tricky, like all of the perfect tenses, but I'll try and explain it to you with a couple of examples.
So, importantly, when do we use it?
Well, we often use the past perfect after a reporting verb in the past.
For example, Michael asked me if Mary had lost weight.
Michael asked me if Mary had lost weight.
Here, the reporting verb is asked.
Michael asked me.
Yeah.
And what did he ask me?
He asked me if Sarah had lost weight.
So it's in the past, and we're using the past perfect.
And we also use the past perfect when we talk about the past, of course.
And we want to refer to two situations, one that happened before another one.
So they have to be connected.
Okay, so, for example, by the time the police arrived, the robber had run away.
Okay.
By the time the police arrived, the robber had run away.