What's the difference between past perfect and past simple?
Posted: 28 Mar 2006, 20:07
Hello,
I have just been over the past perfect with reasonably advanced students.
The past perfect is used to sequence 2 past actions - something in the past that occurs before another event/action in the past. (right?)
In class we were going through a text, changing verb forms where needed. We came across the correct sentence:
His wife retrieved it from the rubbish bin, and soon afterwards it was accepted for an award.
One of my students then asked why we would not use the past perfect in this case, since the sentence talks about 2 past events (in sequence).
His wife had retrieved it from the rubbish bin, and soon afterwards it had been accepted for an award.
This one is bugging me- maybe the answer is very straight-forward, but I'm not having much luck figuring it out!
Could you please try to shed some light on this for me?
Thank you very much and I look forward to hearing back.
I have just been over the past perfect with reasonably advanced students.
The past perfect is used to sequence 2 past actions - something in the past that occurs before another event/action in the past. (right?)
In class we were going through a text, changing verb forms where needed. We came across the correct sentence:
His wife retrieved it from the rubbish bin, and soon afterwards it was accepted for an award.
One of my students then asked why we would not use the past perfect in this case, since the sentence talks about 2 past events (in sequence).
His wife had retrieved it from the rubbish bin, and soon afterwards it had been accepted for an award.
This one is bugging me- maybe the answer is very straight-forward, but I'm not having much luck figuring it out!
Could you please try to shed some light on this for me?
Thank you very much and I look forward to hearing back.