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Listen to Lesson_2_1_Past_Perfect_Explanation_78_15_V1 by Lara Strong MP3 song. Lesson_2_1_Past_Perfect_Explanation_78_15_V1 song from Lara Strong is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 11:51. This high-quality MP3 track has 128 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 15 Aug 2025. Stream and download Lesson_2_1_Past_Perfect_Explanation_78_15_V1 by Lara Strong for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
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The transcript discusses the use of Past Perfect with action verbs in storytelling. It explains that Past Perfect is used to show which event happened first in the past and that it finished before the later event. The example of a football team winning a match is used to illustrate this concept, with the Past Perfect indicating the earlier event. The importance of sequencing events correctly in storytelling is emphasized, with the Past Perfect helping to clarify the order of events. The transcript also mentions that there should be no overlap between the earlier and later actions when using the Past Perfect. More Past Perfect fun! Welcome to Lesson 2, Video 1. When do we use the Past Perfect? And our focus in this video is on action verbs. In the last video, we talked about how to form the Past Perfect. We need the helping verb had plus the third form of the verb, otherwise known as the Past Participle. Now we're ready to answer that very exciting question. When do we use the Past Perfect? You may already know that we use the Past Perfect in the Conditional Mood and in Reported Speech. But in this course, we're going to focus on how we use the Past Perfect in storytelling. That's why it's called a Narrative Tense. As I said earlier, in this video, we're going to focus on action verbs. Later in this lesson, in videos 3 and 4, we'll investigate state verbs. Time for a grammar side note. Action verbs describe things we do or things that happen. In this video, when I say action or event, I'm referring to action verbs. And here are some examples of action verbs. All right, so let's begin. When do we use the Past Perfect for action verbs? We use the Past Perfect when we have two actions or events in the past. And we want to show that one of these past events happened before the other past event. All right, so let's look at our timeline. And here we have the present. And here we have one past event and another past event. And this past event is the earlier event. So, it happened before this past event, which is the later event. So, we use the Past Perfect here for the earlier event. And we use the Past Simple here for the later event. Usually, with action verbs, the Past Perfect also tells us the earlier action or event not only happened, but finished before the later event began. Now let's look at an example. The football team waved to the crowd. They had won the match. We can see here that waved is in the Past Simple. So, it's the later event in the past. And won is in the Past Perfect. So, it's the earlier event in the past. Is the Past Perfect always compared to the Past Simple? Not always, but usually. Does the order in which the tenses appear matter? It can. Let's take a deeper dive. Let's look at this example. Here are two events that happened last Friday evening. The dancers danced beautifully. The audience clapped. We can tell this as a very simple story. The dancers danced beautifully. The audience clapped. And which event happened first? Well, as I said, this is a simple story. So, we know, first, the dancers danced beautifully. Second, the audience clapped. And how do we know that? Because in simple stories, the events and the sentences happen in the same order. So, the first event in time is the dancers danced beautifully. And this is the first sentence in our story. The second event that happened in the story is the audience clapped. And this is the second sentence in our story. So, here is our simple story again. The dancers danced beautifully. The audience clapped. But what if we want to make the storytelling more interesting? What if we want to mix up the order of the sentences? What if we make the second event in our story the first sentence in our story? And what if we make the first event in our story the second sentence in our story? Then our story reads, the audience clapped. The dancers had danced beautifully. But if we do that, how do we know which event happened first? Won't we think that the audience clapped first and then the dancers danced? No worries. The Past Perfect helps us out. The Past Perfect tells us the dancers danced first and then the audience clapped. See, there it is in red. The Past Perfect had danced. And this tells us that the dancers danced first and then the audience clapped. So, we have the first event and the second event. Now, remember what I said earlier. With action verbs, usually the earlier action or event started and finished before the later event started. Here are some examples. The first event started and finished before the later event started. Here are our beautiful dancers again. First, they danced. Then, they finished. That's right, they finished. And then what happened after the dancers had finished? The audience clapped. That's right, the audience clapped. Here's another way to think about it. There is no overlap between the earlier action and the later action. By overlap, we mean this. The red stripe represents the earlier action and the green stripe the later action. And here is where we can see some overlap. So, the earlier action was still going on when the later action began. But, as I said, the Past Perfect tells us the dancers danced first and then the audience clapped. There is no overlap between the earlier action and the later action. Now, let's see. The audience clapped. The dancers had danced beautifully. So, there is a little break between the actions. And this break might just be a split second, but it's there. Here is a summary of how we use the Past Perfect for actions and events. When we have two actions or events in the past, the Past Perfect tells us which action or event happened first. It also tells us that the first action or event finished before the next one started. Time for a break. In the next video, we'll practice using the Past Perfect. See you again soon! Thank you for watching!
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