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PreciousJones Posted 16 years ago
Grammar
Past perfect
I need documents to prove that I had come to this hospital a year ago. Would this be ok? Or there has to be more context. What's the difference between the sentence above and: I need documents to prove that I came to this hospital a year ago.
Top answer
Even more context would probably not condone past perfect use. Use simple past.
- Even more context would probably not condone past perfect use.
- Use simple past.
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5 Answers
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Even more context would probably not condone past perfect use. Use simple past.
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What about:
I need documents to prove that I had come to this hospital a year ago before I moved to Mississippi so I can claim health insurance benefits.
I need documents to prove that I had come to this hospital a year ago before I moved to Mississippi so I can claim health insurance benefits.
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Again, no past perfect. 'Before' makes the order of past events perfectly clear.
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Thanks MM, but did I use the past perfect correctly this time? I want to know because it's how I learn the usage of verb tenses.
PreciousJonesWhat about:
I need documents to prove that I had come to this hospital a year ago before I moved to Mississippi so I can claim health insurance benefits.
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MM will need to elaborate, correct what I have wrong here, but I'll give it a shot:
The past perfect is used to show that something happens before something else in the past.
In your first sentence, you are using the present simple, so you don't use the past perfect, but rather the past simple, to refer to something that happened before the present.
As MM said,
The past perfect is used to show that something happens before something else in the past.
In your first sentence, you are using the present simple, so you don't use the past perfect, but rather the past simple, to refer to something that happened before the present.
As MM said,
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