Past vs Past perfect for repeated past actions?

Question

I am improving my English skills and need your help. When I was reading a grammar book, I came across these sentences.

Sentence 1: Past: We went to Spain three times last week.

Sentence 2: Past Perfect: I had stayed in the hotel twice in the 1990.

1. Which is the best way to convey the repeated past action- Past or Past Perfect?

2. Why the past perfect is used in sentence 2 instead of just saying "I stayed in the Hotel twice in the 1990" as we are not referencing a more distant past time before a recent past time which is the definition for past perfect.

3. If I have to rewrite the my first sentence using Past perfect, It would be "We had been to Spain three times last week". Is this valid? If yes, which is the perfect way to say it - Past or Past Perfect.

Englishmaven · Accepted Answer

If you were to rewrite the first sentence, you would use "gone" rather than "been."

You are right. There would be no reason to use the past perfect if it were not in relation to another past event that happened after the past perfect event. However, the sentence was offered in a grammar book as an example, and I don't know the context of the example. It might have been an isolated example of the tense. That would be fine.

Incidentally, you should say "in the 1990s."

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Past perfect is almost always used to signal an earlier event in a sequence of past events, especially when the sequence is not clear. It is common in a narrative about events in the past.

I read in the newspaper (event 1 - reading) that the Sonora Hotel had burned down (event 2 - hotel burning). It brought back some fond memories. I had stayed there twice in the 1990s. The first time was when I proposed to my wife, and second time was our honeymoon.

Past vs Past perfect for repeated past actions?

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