Lesson 2: Using Past and Past Perfect Tenses in Journalistic Writing

Learning Outcome

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

a. Determine the past and past perfect tenses in a sentence;

Pre-test

Directions: Choose the best answer and encircle it.

1. When Airi _______ at school, she realized she _______ her textbook.
A. Had arrived, forgot
B. Arrived, had forgotten
C. Forgot, had arrived
D. Had forgotten, arrived
 
2. When I _______ the new teacher, I was so surprised. I _______ his class before!
A. Met, had taken
B. Had met, took
C. Had taken, met
D. Took, had met
 
3. Fraser _______ sushi before he _______ to Japan.
A. Never ate, had come
B. Came, had never eaten
C. Had come, never ate
D. Had never eaten, came

 
4. I _______ any money on the weekend because I _______ my wallet on Friday.
A. Didn't have, had lost
B. Hadn't had, lost
C. Didn't lose, hadn't had
D. Hadn't lost, didn't have
 
5. When Yuka _______ washing the dishes, she _______ the TV on.
A. Finished, had turned
B. Turned, had finished
C. Had finished, turned
D. Had turned, finished
 Discussion

Past Perfect Tense

The past perfect, also called the pluperfect, is a verb tense used to talk about actions
that were completed before some point in the past.
We were shocked to discover that someone had graffitied “Tootles was here” on our
front door. We were relieved that Tootles had used washable paint.
The past perfect tense is for talking about something that happened before
something else. Imagine waking up one morning and stepping outside to grab the
newspaper. On your way back in, you notice a mysterious message scrawled across your
front door: Tootles was here. When you’re telling this story to your friends later, how would
you describe this moment? You might say something like:
I turned back to the house and saw that some someone named Tootles had
defaced my front door!

In addition to feeling indignant on your behalf, your friends will also be able to
understand that Tootles graffitied the door at some point in the past before the moment this
morning when you saw his handiwork, because you used the past perfect tense to describe
the misdeed.

The Past Perfect Formula

The formula for the past perfect tense is had + [past participle]. It doesn’t matter if
the subject is singular or plural; the formula doesn’t change.

When to Use the Past Perfect

So what’s the difference between past perfect and simple past? When you’re talking about
some point in the past and want to reference an event that happened even earlier, using the
past perfect allows you to convey the sequence of the events. It’s also clearer and more
specific. Consider the difference between these two sentences:

We were relieved that Tootles used washable paint. We were relieved that

It’s a subtle difference, but the first sentence doesn’t tie Tootles’s act of using
washable paint to any particular moment in time; readers might interpret it as “We were
relieved that Tootles was in the habit of using washable paint.” In the second sentence, the
past perfect makes it clear that you’re talking about a specific instance of using washable
paint.
 Another time to use the past perfect is when you are expressing a condition and a
result:

If I had woken up earlier this morning, I would have caught Tootles red-handed.

The past perfect is used in the part of the sentence that explains the condition (the if-
clause).

Most often, the reason to write a verb in the past perfect tense is to show that it
happened before other actions in the same sentence that are described by verbs in the
simple past tense. Writing an entire paragraph with every verb in the past perfect tense is
unusual.

When Not to Use the Past Perfect

Don’t use the past perfect when you’re not trying to convey some sequence of events. If your
friends asked what you did after you discovered the graffiti, they would be confused if you
said:

I had cleaned it off the door.

They’d likely be wondering what happened next because using the past perfect
implies that your action of cleaning the door occurred before something else happened, but
you don’t say what that something else is. The “something else” doesn’t always have to be
explicitly mentioned, but context needs to make it clear. In this case there’s no context, so
the past perfect doesn’t make sense

Common Regular Verbs in the Past Perfect Tense

*The past participle of “to get” is “gotten” in American English. In British English, the

past participle is “got.” 

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/past-perfect/

Activity

A. Directions: It tests what you learned on the Past Perfect .Shade the correct answer.

1. We ________ finished eating dinner.

 󠄠󠄠had not 󠄠not had 󠄠 'd had not

2. Had they _____ to her before?

󠄠 spoke 󠄠 spoken 󠄠 spoked

3. You _____ not left yet.

󠄠 󠄠would 󠄠 'd 󠄠 would had

4. I had never _____ her before.

󠄠 see 󠄠saw 󠄠 seen

󠄠has 󠄠 have 󠄠 had

https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses_past-perfect-quiz.htm

B.

https://english-quiz.net/past-perfect-tense-quiz.html?ref=binfind.com/web
 Assessment

A. Write 5 sentences for each past and past perfect tenses of the verb.
Past Tense
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Past Perfect Tense
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Feedback

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Suggested Readings

 https://www.grammar-monster.com/glosarry/past_perfect_tense.html
 https://enlgish.lingolia.com/en/grammar/tense-compariso/simple-past-past-perfect
 https://www.ecenglish.com/learnerenglish/lessons/past-simple-or-past-perfect

References:

Books

English 8 Quarter 4 – Module 1 Grammar Awareness. Literacy 21 st Century Skills,