Often used when relating two events which happened in the past.

Its helps to show which event happened first. Its refers to two periods of time, one action being completed before the other took place.

To show an action that had been completed at a certain time in the past. To show one action happened before another in the past. Used with wish and if to show an event that might have happened in the past but is not possible now.

The past perfect is used to show you which of two events happened first. Imagine that two things happened in the past:
I went to see the movie. We discussed the movie in class.

Here, we don't know which order the events happened in. That may be important -- perhaps I went to see the movie after the discussion, or maybe I saw the movie before the discussion. There are many ways to make this sequence clear, and the past perfect is one of them. This is how we do it:
I went to see the movie. We had discussed it in class.

Here, we KNOW that the discussion took place FIRST -even though the sentence describing it comes afterwards. We discussed the movie, and THEN I went to see it. This can be very useful when you are telling a story or relating a sequence of events. At any point in your story, you can jump BACK to a previous event, and your reader will not be confused, because the past perfect will make it clear that the event happened previously. Here is another example:

I wanted to live in a foreign country, so I applied for a job in Japan. Judy lived in Japan, so I called her to find out more about the culture and lifestyle there. (Judy was probably still living in Japan when I called her.) I wanted to live in a foreign country, so I applied for a job in Japan. Judy had lived in Japan, so I called her to find out more about the culture and lifestyle there. (Judy no longer lived in Japan -- she returned from there before I applied for the job.)

This tense is formed using two components: the verb HAVE (in the past tense), and the past participle form of a verb. With a regular verb the past participle ends with -ED (just like the simple past). Irregular verbs have a special past participle form that you have to learn. Here are the rules, using the regular verb "arrive" and the irregular verb "eat":

Subject I

HAVE had

Past Participle arrived. eaten. arrived. eaten. arrived. eaten. arrived. eaten. arrived. eaten. arrived. eaten. arrived. eaten.

Contraction I'd arrived. I'd eaten. You'd arrived. You'd eaten. He'd arrived. He'd eaten. She'd arrived. She'd eaten. It'd arrived. It'd eaten. We'd arrived. We'd eaten. They'd arrived. They'd eaten.

You

had

He

had

She

had

It

had

We

had

They

had

Affirmative
I had decided You had decided

Negative
I hadn't decided You hadn't decided

Interrogative
Had I decided? Had you decided?

He, she, it had decided

He hadn't decided

Had she decided?

We had decided You had decided They had decided

We hadn't decided You hadn't decided They hadn't decided

Had we decided? Had you decided? Had they decided?

The past perfect refers to a time earlier than before now. It is used to make it clear that one event happened before another in the past. It does not matter which event is mentioned first - the tense makes it clear which one happened first.

In these examples, Event A is the first or earliest event, Event B is the second or latest event:
Event A John had gone out I had saved my document When they arrived He was very tired Event B when I arrived in the office. before the computer crashed. we had already started cooking because he hadn't slept well.

Past perfect + just 'Just' is used with the past perfect to refer to an event that was only a short time earlier than before now, e.g. a. The train had just left when I arrived at the station. b. She had just left the room when the police arrived. c. I had just put the washing out when it started to rain.