Past

Question

Which is right and why?Yesterday I went to the doctor.Yesterday I had gone to the doctor.Don't they pretty much mean the same thing because both things happened in the past.?and this one please?He told me I was doing a good job.He had told me I was doing a good job.I don't see a difference in these sentences.

Jaguartree · Accepted Answer

You are mixing up past simple and past perfect forms of the verbs.

MFG · Answer

ok, sorry for that.

CalifJim · Answer

MFGDon't they pretty much mean the same thing because both things happened in the past.?

Yes, they both report the same event. What is different is the time point that they are related to.

I went to the doctor is the past of present time. The present moment is the reference point.
I had gone to the doctor is the past of past time. Some moment in the past is the reference point.

Similarly,

He told me .... Past of the present.
He had told me .... Past of the past.

You can't see a difference between such pairs of sentences unless you see them in the context of a story. The past of the past makes no sense as an isolated sentence because the reference point (something in the past) has not yet been established in previous sentences.

CJ

Goronsky · Answer

MFGYesterday I went to the doctor. Yesterday I had gone to the doctor. He told me I was doing a good job. He had told me I was doing a good job. I don't see a difference in these sentences.

Yesterday I had gone to the doctor before I went to the supermarket.

He had told me I was doing a good job before he fired me.

Clive · Answer

Consider these simple examples.

Tom came home at 6 pm. His wife cooked dinner. ie She cooked it after 6 pm.

Tom came home at 6 pm. His wife had cooked dinner. ie She cooked it before 6 pm.

Clive

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