English Grammar

The Past Perfect Tense

Structure: subject + had + past participle form of the verb

They had come.
She had written a novel.
I had waited for two hours.

The past perfect tense is used to indicate that an action was completed before another action took place.

The train had left before I reached the station.
The rain had stopped when he went out of the house.

Note that the past perfect is used to talk about the earlier past action where as the simple past is used to talk about the later past action.

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