This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1881.
Past perfect grammar for clarifying in English.
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There are moments at work and in life when you need to talk about the past of the past.
In today's episode, learn how to use the past perfect to give context into what happened before, to maintain your relationships.
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Hey, Aubrey, you just got back from Mexico.
I know we talked about this a couple of days ago.
Anything you'd do differently if you could go back?
Yes.
So I don't know if I told you that we went through a hurricane on the way there.
And if we had known there'd be a hurricane, we would have booked a different weekend for sure.
But it worked out OK.
We just drove through it and it was crazy.
Torrential rains, really heavy hurricane level winds.
And it was scary that the dirt in the desert, the sand of the desert, was kicking up underneath as well as the hurricane clouds above.
Wow.
And like the windshield wipers could not go fast enough.
Scary.
It was scary, but luckily we got through it.
And then we, when we got to the beach it had hit and had sort of ruined some things on the beach lifeguard stands and things, but at least and the waves were crashing way bigger than I've ever seen them there before.
But then it calmed and we had a couple of great days on the beach.
So it worked out.
Oh, amazing.
I remember driving once in New Mexico New Mexico in the U?
S and having a similar situation on the highway.
It's scary, right?
When your windshield wipers can't handle it, there's so much rain and you can't see anything.
I bought a new car once and didn't think to test the windshield wiper.
Not new.
I bought an old car that was new to me.
On the freeway, it started pouring rain and I turned on the windshield wipers and nothing.
They didn't work at all.
It was scary because I had to just pull over on the freeway.
That's terrifying.
It was so terrifying.
Please, no one hit me because.
Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
I love it.
Well, before we get into today's episode, this is going to be good because we're doing grammar today.
I know our listeners really want to up their grammar game.
But guys, keep in mind that today's episode is on YouTube.
So if you want to check it out over there, you can always go and see us recording this video.
Right, Aubrey?
Yes, for sure.
You'll see all my hand gestures and faces pretty dynamic when I talk.
All right, so who asked the question for today?
Which listener was this from?
Yeah, this is a great question.
And it's about Past Perfect, which I used when I was talking about that hurricane.
So let me go ahead and read this question.
It's from Julie Tang.
Okay.
And she said, do you guys have episodes on Past Perfect and Future Perfect?
I've only seen Present Perfect.
Also, if you're doing future perfect, I see that we use will.
When do we use would?
Ooh, I can see that Julie's like you said, wanting to up her grammar game, wanting to understand why to use which tense.
This is high level grammar, but it is important to know.
Yes, thank you julie, for this question and, by the way guys, we love your questions, so send them in to lindsay at allearsenglishcom.
We love creating this show for you.
Send a good, focused question And what are we going to address today?
We can't do everything in one episode, right?
There's a lot in that question, right?
So we are for sure going to cover, you know, future perfect soon and will versus would.
So be sure to follow so that you don't miss those episodes.
And today we're going to dive in the very first part of her question about past perfect.
Yes.
Just to point out my for my answer to your question.
Yes.
That if we had known there'd be a hurricane, we would have done something differently.
Right.
So that's the past perfect.
If we had known if something had been different at a point in the past, then something else.
Right.
So this is a complicated grammar form, but we're going to break it down today.
So it's very clear how and when you can use it.
Yeah, we're going to make it clear.
And then as always, guys, we're going to show you when it matters, if it matters.
Right.
And how to use it for connection.
That's the key.
Right.
So keep, you know, pay attention to the details today.
Take notes.
But then at the end, we're going to show you how to actually use this for our ultimate goal, which is that human connection.
So good.
Exactly.
Right.
And this is such good timing because just a few episodes ago 1877, this came up when remember, we were talking about how multiple tenses spice up a story.
If you missed that episode, guys, for sure, go check it out.
Yeah.
Past perfect came up.
I said I had misunderstood and thought she had owned this plant for a long time.
Right.
So now is where we do the dive into why did I use deep dive?
All right.
Deep dive time.
Let's do it, Aubrey.
Where do we start?
What do we have to know?
So past perfect is used for actions that were completed before some point in the past.
So let's talk about the formula a little bit, but that's really vital that you know when it's used.
If you're taking a lot of English in, you're going to hear it.
It's going to make sense that it's being used that way, but it is so helpful to break it down, to look at the formula, to understand why, so that it all makes sense.
OK, so does it matter if the subject is singular or plural?
What do you think?
Or is the formula always the same?
The formula is always the same.
Past perfect is one of the easiest tenses to create because of that.
It's always the word had always with the past participle.
Which is what makes it a little tricky because there are a lot of irregular past participles, right?
You'll hear natives say like, she had drank, she had swam.
Oh, they make mistakes, right?
She had swum because the past participle is irregular.
Swim, swims.
Yeah, I think that these past participles guys, they come back to bite you if you don't master them from the start.
So we see these all throughout all the grammar tenses.
So make sure you know them.
This would be a good, smart use of your time considering the 80-20 principle to really learn these past participles.
Right, Aubrey?
Sure.
Yes.
And you made a really good point that it doesn't matter if the subject is singular or plural.
That formula is always the same.
So I had misunderstood.
She had misunderstood.
They had misunderstood.
That helps that, you know, for past perfect, it's always the same with the past participle.
Well, that is a win.
I love the idea of highlighting what is easy about this, right?
Because you guys can totally do this.
We can handle this.
All right, let's go a little deeper.
Yeah.
So we want to talk about how you can use this at work to sound really intelligent and native, but also some key skills clarifying misunderstandings and explaining when something goes wrong.
That's the main time you hear natives use Past Perfect with friends and at work, and it's a skill you need to have.
Oh, yeah, because we need this.
We don't want to have these misunderstandings.
And if we see that there are misunderstandings with our colleagues, we want to clarify it right away.
Right.
That's the key here.
So good.
All right.
So first, what's the scenario?
Let's first talk about clarifying misunderstandings.
Imagine a coworker comes up to you and says, I heard you're organizing a happy hour.
Why didn't you invite me? you need the language to be able to diffuse, clarify the misunderstanding.
What would you maybe say, Lindsay?
You could say this.
You had left for lunch when we talked about it.
Of course you're invited.
Yes.
Right.
So describing that you need past perfect, you are sure left.
So you just have had with the past participle.
Oh, you had left for lunch.
Yeah.
When we talked about it.
Right.
Right.
And that you're almost for sure going to need past perfect in a situation like that, because you're describing something that was completed in the past when this other action in the past, when you and other coworkers decided to go to happy hour
Yeah.
And this helps the person feel included.
You understand you can go back to that exact time period and what happened.
Now, we could do another episode on this, Aubrey, but could we throw in already?
Could we throw in and say, oh, you'd already left for lunch already?
We can do that, right?
You almost always can say already when you're using the past perfect because it's describing.
It's maybe a little redundant, but not really.
It just clarifies even more, right?
Yeah, it clarifies.
Something had already happened when we did this, right?
Yeah, it feels more natural.
I think I would put-
Yeah.
As a native speaker, I think I would just tend to put that in there just for clarity and just to make it clear.
And almost for emphasis, right?
Oh, you had already left.
Yes.
Trying to emphasize, oh, we didn't leave you out on purpose.
You had already left.
Exactly.
Really good idea.
So important to know.
Okay, now do we have a second way that we would use the past perfect at the office?
Yes, definitely.
And they're very similar, right?
To explain when something went wrong.
So often there is a misunderstanding when something went wrong.
So these are very related, but sometimes it's just a scenario.
Something went wrong, for example.
Imagine you're telling a friend about a meeting you attended at work that you were late to and you just want to describe it to the friend.
Right.
What might you say, Lindsay?
OK, you could say they had started before I arrived.
And as Aubrey and I just said, you could put they had already started before I arrived.
Yes.
And I want to point out pronunciation there.
This is so native that when you said already, you sort of skipped the L and said, like already you hear the L.
This is very common, you guys, for native American English pronunciation.
Yeah, we are saving time.
We're skipping letters.
So you might hear someone pronounce that L already.
And you might hear it just like Lindsay just said already.
I do that too already.
Oh, for sure.
Any sound that's slightly awkward, like already.
It takes too long for me to move from the L to the R, And so I don't do it.
I just don't bother.
Yes.
Or you might say the meeting had begun before I got there.
Yes.
Yes.
So we just say you've got the subject and then had with your past participle.
And this is where you might hear a native say it wrong.
They might say the meeting had began before.
Oh, yeah.
Because I forget. that the past participle is irregular for begin.
It should be the meeting had begun.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
We, we, yeah.
We can talk about the comment.
Add this to a list of common native speaker mistakes.
For sure guys, but go back, learn your past participles, because again they come back to bite you.
So good.
All right, Aubrey, should we do a role play?
Yes.
In this role play, you and I are debriefing after a meeting or debriefing.
You'll hear that pronounced both ways.
I think the emphasis on D is more common, actually.
I think so, too.
As I said, debriefing, I was like, that sounds wrong.
That sounds wrong.
That sounds weird, right?
We are debriefing after a meeting and we're expressing how those things went wrong, what went wrong, right.
And just to define that really quick, if you guys have the app, you'll for sure see this.
It just means a meeting to discuss how things went.
We're going to debrief to discuss how did that go?
Oh boy.
All right, here we go.
Well, all right, let's get started.
All right, I'll start us off.
Oh boy, that did not go well.
If I had known we were presenting today.
Right?
If they hadn't sprung it on us.
I tried to ask them to postpone, but it was too late.
The client had already flown in for the presentation.
Ooh, good one.
Lots of good.
That's perfect there.
I know that would be terrible.
Can you imagine you're preparing a presentation, but you're not ready?
No.
And they spring it on you like, oh, we're ready now.
Let's do it.
Not good because-
If you're making your slides, you've got all these mistakes on the slides, no formatting.
Yeah, not good, not good.
Yeah, so let's go through this, because we did something very native where we're cutting off the second part of the sentence.
We do this all the time, right?
You said...
If I had known we were presenting today.
Implied is the rest of the sentence, which would be like I would have done something differently.
But we often will do that.
We'll interrupt each other or just stop.
And the rest is implied.
Right.
But here you're not even this isn't even an interruption.
Right.
Instead, it's just a trailing off and an assumption that we know what we're saying.
We get the idea from the first part of the sentence.
Yep.
You see the past perfect there.
If I had known.
Right.
Right.
And I think for me, naturally speaking fast, I would just say if I'd known if I'd known.
For sure.
Yes, that's a really good point to point out that for past perfect, we often won't slow down and say the whole had.
We use that contraction and say, if I'd known, if I'd known we were presenting today.
Exactly.
But if it's in the negative, you have to say the full hadn't.
Right.
So I said so you said right.
If they hadn't sprung it on us.
Right.
Exactly.
But again, a contraction there, because I wouldn't say if they had not sprung it on us.
Right.
That sounds really strange.
True.
True.
Yeah.
Sure.
Going to create that contraction and say if they hadn't sprung it on us.
Exactly.
And then what did I say after that?
And then you said, I tried to ask them to postpone, but it's too late.
The client had already flown.
And this is exactly what you were talking about.
It's so native to add already because we're talking about something that already happened.
Yes.
Had already flown in.
Right.
I love it.
So good.
So good.
So what's the takeaway for our listeners?
I mean, what do we have to know?
I always think of the past perfect as kind of the past of the past right, something that happened before the past.
Right yes right, that's a good way to think about it.
You guys, for sure you want to be able to use the past perfect, especially in these situations, to be able to kind, clarify misunderstandings, describe how something went wrong.
And this is something that is flagged in a native's brain.
We know what it should sound like.
And if the tense is used incorrectly, we do notice.
So it's worth learning it.
It's worth trying, but again, Natives are just going to be happy you're trying to communicate.
You guys know from us, connection, not perfection.
But this is one thing that's worth learning the past participles, learning when to use this, because it is noticeable.
Yeah.
So go back, go back to those past particles guys, that you left in your textbook somewhere five years ago, right?
And go back, learn them, remember them, and then implement them into these moments of connection.
It's, So important here in the workplace situation, qualify what actually happened.
Why was that person not invited?
You need the past perfect for that, right?
Exactly right.
And keep in mind, if you're using this correctly, you may be speaking better than a lot of natives, because natives do mess up past participles.
So that's a good little...
Tip here is that don't stress about using the wrong past participle.
It does happen.
But for those situations, like a job interview, where you really want to impress and put your best foot forward, you want to know those past participles and use the correct one.
Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
So good.
Aubrey, thanks for hanging out today and for bringing up a little grammar for us here, on All Ears English.
We love it.
As always.
Thanks, Lindsay.
I'll see you next time.
All right.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
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