Class 5 English Grammar – Tenses (Perfect)

Perfect Tense

1. Past perfect tense

• The PAST PERFECT TENSE indicates that an action was completed (finished or “perfected”) at some point in the past before something else happened.
• The Past Perfect describes an action completed before a certain moment in the past. For example:
• I met him in New Delhi in 1996. The last I had seen him was five years before. 
• If two actions happened in the past, it may be necessary to show which action happened earlier than the other. The Past Perfect is mainly used in such situations. The Simple Past is used in one clause and the Past Perfect in the other, for example:
• I had done my exercise when Han came to see me.

Here, the first clause is “when Han came to see me” (Simple Past Tense) and the second clause is “I had done my exercise” (Past Perfect Tense).  

Example:

• When I reached the station the train had started so I could not get into the train.
• I had written the letter before he arrived.

2. Present Perfect Tense

• The Present Perfect is used

(1) To indicate completed activities in the immediate past (with just), for example:

• He has just gone out.
• It has just struck ten.

(2) To express past actions whose time is not given and not definite. For example:

• Have you read “Gulliver’s Travels”?
• I have never known him to be angry.
• Hari has been to Japan.

(3) To denote an action beginning at some time in the continuing up to the present moment (often with since- and/or-phrases), for example:

• I have known him for a long time.
• He has been ill since last week.
• We have lived here for ten years.
• We haven’t seen the Padma for several months.

3. Future Perfect Tense

• The Future Perfect Tense is used to talk about actions that will be completed by/at a certain future time.
• I shall have written my exercise by then.
• He will have left before you go to see him.
• By the end of this month, I will have worked here for five years.

RULES OF USING PERFECT TENSE