Distinguish between the past simple and the past perfect

1. Simple past

The past simple is used to express an action that started and ended in the past. The sign to identify this tense is a sentence that often has adverbs of time in the past such as “yesterday” (yesterday), “last night/ year/ month” (night/year/month ago), “ago” (before) ), “in 1999” (in 1999) or past clauses.

Structure:

(+) S + Vp1 (was/were)…

I finished my homework last night. (I finished my homework last night.)

Yesterday, we were at home. (Yesterday, we were at home).

(-) S + didn’t V (wasn’t/weren’t)…

He didn’t play football last. (He didn’t play football last Sunday)

He wasn’t well last week. (Last week he was unwell)

(?) Did (Was/Were) + S + V…?

Did she invite you to the party yesterday night? (Did she invite you to the party last night?)

Were they in bad mood last year? (They were in bad shape last year, weren’t they?)

Note:

V: infinitive / Vp1: past participle verb / Vp2: past participle verb.

S: Subject

2. Past perfect

The past perfect describes an action that happened and completed before another action in the past. In which, the action happened first: use the past perfect tense (Had Vp2), the action happened later: use the simple past tense (Vp1).

Signs to identify and position common prepositions and conjunctions in sentences with past perfect tense: “until then” (until then), “by the time” (at the time), “before” (before) , “after”(after), “when” (when), “by the end of + time in the past” …

Structure:

(+) S + had Vp2…

My mom had cooked breakfast when I got up. (My mother had finished cooking breakfast when I woke up.)

(-) S + hadn’t Vp2…

He hadn’t played football until last week. (He had never played football until last week.)

(?) Had + S + Vp2…?

Had he gone out before you arrived home? (He was gone before you got home, right?)

Exercises:

Dinh Thi Thai Ha