Past Perfect or Past Simple?

How to choose between the past simple and the past perfect

Uses of the past simple

Completed actions, states or habits in the past.

1. It is used for completed actions, states or habits in the past accompanied by a finished time reference such as 'yesterday', 'last week', 'at 2 o'clock' or 'in 2003'.

• I went to the cinema yesterday.
• We spent a lot of time in Japan in 2007.

2. It is used when general knowledge tells us that the period in question is over, including cases where the person referred to is no longer alive.

• Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa.
• The Vikings invaded Britain.

3. It supplies the detail of an event first introduced by the present perfect or another tense. This use is often described as giving the details of news.

• I've hurt my leg. I fell off a ladder when I was painting my bedroom.
• I've been on holiday. I went to Spain and Portugal.

4. In narrative and in sequences of events, the past simple carries the actions of the story while the past continuous supplies the background.

• He went to a café. People were chatting and music was playing. He sat down and ordered a coffee.

Unreal or imaginary situations in the present or future.

5. The past simple also refers to what is unreal in the present or the future. It appears in the second conditional and after verbs such as 'wish'.

• If I won the lottery, I would buy a house.
• I wish I had more time!

Uses of the past perfect

1. A completed action occurring before a second point in the past.

• When we arrived, the film had started (= first the film started, then we arrived).

2. The past perfect establishes which of two past actions came first. It is used when the narrative is already set in the past and a still earlier event needs to be mentioned, frequently in order to explain or account for what followed.

• I'd eaten dinner so I wasn't hungry.
• It had snowed in the night, so the bus didn't arrive.

3. Where the order of events is already clear, as it is after 'before' or 'after', the past perfect becomes optional.

• The film started before we arrived / the film had started before we arrived.

4. Something that began in the past and continued up to another past action or time. The past perfect expresses how long, exactly as the present perfect does, except that the action runs up to a point in the past rather than to the present. 'For + time' is usual. The past perfect continuous is also available here, which is why the simple form tends to be reserved for stative verbs.

• When he graduated, he had been in London for six years. (= He arrived in London six years before he graduated and lived there until he graduated, or even longer.)
• On the 20th of July, I'd worked here for three months.

5. To refer to what is unreal or imaginary in the past. Just as the past simple serves for unreal situations in the present, the past perfect, one step further back, serves for unreal situations in the past. It is common in the third conditional and after 'wish'.

• If I had known you were ill, I would have visited you.
• She would have passed the exam if she had studied harder.
• I wish I hadn't gone to bed so late!