Arab British Academy for Higher Education
Aims
The aims of this lesson are to enable you to study the
following:
 the Pluperfect Tense:
o how you say what had happened
 reflexive Verbs:
o how you turn an action on Yourself and on One Another
Context
In Lesson Nine, we had a look at the Present Perfect (I
have + Past Participle; e.g. I have walked, I have
brought, I have sung, and so on). Now we are going to
take a step further back into the past with the Pluperfect
which expresses what had happened...
The Pluperfect
This is really quite easy as the Past Participles will be the same as for the
Present Perfect (Check Lessons Two and Nine for the Irregular Past
Participles)
Examples
a) Regular
1 I had (not) walked
1 we had (not) walked
2 you had (not) walked 2 you had (not) walked
3
he/she had (not) 3 they had (not) walked
walked
b) Irregular
1 I had (not) given
2 you had (not) given
3
he/she had (not)
given
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1 we had (not) given
2 you had (not) given
3 they had (not) given
Arab British Academy for Higher Education
Continuous Form
Like most tenses, the Pluperfect has its continuous form: here is how it
goes from the verb to have (n.b. there is no continuous form in the
Pluperfect of to be...)
1 I had (not) been having
2 you had (not) been having
3 he, she, it had (not) been having
1 we had (not) been having
2 you had (not) been having
3 they had (not) been having
Interrogative Forms (Questions)
These are very easy as to make a Question you simply put had in front of
the Subject Pronoun:
Examples
Had I done this? Had she seen me? Had we
gone?
n.b. to make a question Negative, you just place not after the Subject:
e.g.
room?)
Had Paul not left the room? (or Hadn’t Paul left the
The variations are quite logical so with practice there need be no real
problems...
Activity
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Put the following sentences into the Pluperfect Tense:
E.g. Peter is going into town this morning
Peter had gone into town this morning
a)We had breakfast at eight o’clock
b)Peter has seen his friends off at the station
c)Haven’t you seen that film?
d)l am1 very ill
e)They do not know the time
f)The sun has disappeared behind a cloud
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g)We have been swimming in the sea
h)We are2 very sorry!
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Remember: Present Perfect = have been
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Always think of Present Perfect before transferring to Pluperfect...
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