Grammar Reference

 

8.1 ■ Past perfect

Affirmative and negative
I You He / She / It We They	had hadn't (= had not)	passed the test.
Questions and short answers
Had	I you he / she / it we they	passed the test?	Yes, I had. No, I hadn't.

We form the past perfect with had / hadn't + past participle. Remember that the past participle is often thesame as the past simple form. However, many past participles have an irregular form.

Use

We use the past perfect to talk about something that happened before something else in the past.

Marie had left the office when I called her.(Marie left the office, and then I called her.)

We can also use the past perfect to explain a situation or give a reason.

I was nervous because I hadn't driven on the motorway before.

We can use the past perfect together with the past simple to describe two past actions, introduced by when or after. The verb in the past perfect always refers to the action that happened first.

They took away his medal after he had won it.(He won the medal, and then they took it away.)

When Colin arrived, everyone had gone home. (Everyone went home, and then Colin arrived.)

8.2 ■ used to

Affirmative and negative
I You He / She / It We They	used to didn't use to	swim every day.
Questions and short answers
Did	I you he / she / it we they	use to swim every day?	Yes, I did. No, I didn't.

Use

We use used to + infinitive to talk about:

• past habits.
  When I was young, I used to play football with my friends every afternoon.
  We used to go sailing in summer, but now we prefer mountain biking.
  What kind of books did you use to read as a child?
• past states or situations.
  Jen used to have very long hair, but she had it cut short last year.
  We used to live in Chester, but we moved to Newcastle when I was twelve.
  Anna didn't use to like tea, but now she drinks tea with milk all the time.

We don't use used to for single actions. Compare the following sentences:

We used to go to the theatre a lot when we lived in London.

NOT We used to go to the theatre on my tenth birthday.

Richard used to be very handsome when he was young.

NOT Richard used to be very handsome at the party last night.

We can often use the past simple instead of used to, but we prefer used to when we want to emphasize that the situation today is different.

When Tom was a teenager, he listened to rock music. (He may or may not listen to rock music now.)

When Tom was a teenager, he used to listen to rock music. (He doesn't listen to rock music any more.)

Note that used to doesn't have a present tense form. To talk about present habits and situations, we always use the present simple, NOT use to.