Past/present perfect

Actually, "My grandfather died," is past simple."

Present perfect would be, "My grandfather has died." We can't say, "My grandfather has died before I was born."

We surely could say, "My grandfather had died before I was born," but that would be past perfect; and we're saving that for next chapter!

That's what I was asking about

So it is possible to use past perfect in this example, isn't it?

Does it mean we d

Hi Tmn

The past perfect is completely unnecessary in your first sentence because there is absolutely no question whether "died" or "was born" happened first. If you use the past perfect when it isn't necessary, your sentences will often end up sounding odd.

I would say you are only likely to find that sort of "had died before I was born" in a narrative context in which both "h

Thanks, but it's quite difficult to differentiate when using past perfect is neessary and when it's not.

That depends to some extent on what you mean by "necessary." There may be exercises in which you're asked to insert a phrase into an existing excerpt, and the best choice may be past perfect.

But when you're starting from scratch, I don't think there's any scenario which you couldn't describe accurately without using the past perfect. Simple past will do the job.

If it is completely clear which came first, you can use simple past.

If it is completely clear which came first AND when the two events are separated by a significant period of time, use simple past.

Even when it's clear which came first, if the two events came very close to each other and you want to draw a clear line showing one was completely finished before the other began, t

Thanks for your replies.

So in everyday speech past perfect isn't necessery?

Is it only used in written and formal (for example novels, TV news etc.) english?

Is it true that it's used more often in british english?

Im Polish and in my native language past perfect or present perfect don't exist and that's why it's not easy to learn.

I'm going to give o

Yes, there you do.

The "for ages" makes it so.

I haven't been there for ages. I hadn't been there for ages BEFORE our visit last night.

But if you wanted to say just this:

His room was tidy. He cleaned it before I came.
His room was not tidy. He didn't clean it before I came OR He hadn't cleaned it before I came.

tmn111 So in everyday speech past perfect isn't necessery?

I hope I didn't mislead you. There are plenty of very common everyday casual conversational expressions which use the past perfect. We pick them up from our friends as we go along, and we get to know what they mean.

By "unnecessary," I meant there are very few actual situations that couldn

So in everyday speech past perfect isn't necessary? Wrong. The past perfect is sometimes required in everyday speech, and it is used in everyday speech. It's not used as often as other tenses, perhaps, but it is used. It's just that learners believe it is used more often than it really is.

Is it only used in written and formal (for example n