Past Perfect tense A friend asked some good questions about how to use the Past Perfect tense in English, and I looked it up to be sure. We got into some good discussion so I thought I'd share it here. "How can I use the past perfect tense correctly?" it's easy use the helping verb 'had', and then make the verb past tense. I had seen you had gone he had run we had finished they had been this all means a state of completion- that even at that past moment the action was complete. In other words, there are two past times implied- one distant past in which the action happened, a more recent past in which the action was done, and the present. actually... be careful to check irregular verbs. 'been' above of course, but also drink: 'he drank, he had drunk' . I'm not exactly sure what that is coming from. Regular verbs are regular of course. posted 2 days agoOne thing that helps the past perfect is the adverb 'already', which very often is used with this tense. "At age four he had already learned the entire alphabet." "Is the adverb 'already' required or not?" no! it's not required! actually there is a stereotype of some 'foreign accent' (to americans) in which already is constantly used, in the present tense. Already is a very strong word, in practice. you are either being extremely sure of something 'I already made sure of the details' or you are angry. 'I asked you to do this already!' Perfect tenses are really only used to specifically comment about the time aspect. Already is like THE adverb for perfect tenses. 'When I saw the movie I had already read the book.' 'I am already working on that problem.' 'You will already have learned surgery when you graduate from medical school.' In each case, the time aspect is the main point of the sentence. Contrast this incorrect use of perfect, which sounds 'non native' even though it isn't grammatically wrong. I am already being here on this beautiful day. better: I am here on this beautiful day. Do you understand the difference? If you reported to your boss that you were doing X, Y, and Z work, that woudl be fine. But it you said you were doing those things 'already' then it sounds like you were defending his claim that you hadn't started work yet. This is really interesting to think about! Thank you for bringing it up!