Published at February 17, 2025

Course on the Preterit vs. Past Perfect - TOEIC® Preparation

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When talking about past actions, it is important to distinguish between two types of events: those that are simply completed in the past (preterit / past simple) and those that occurred before another past moment (past perfect). This distinction allows for precise description of chronology and cause-and-effect relationships.

Preterit (same as past simple): emphasizes past actions completed at a specific time, without necessarily mentioning prior events.
Past Perfect: expresses an action that occurred before another past event or a defined moment in the past.

To distinguish between the preterit and the past perfect, it is essential to examine the chronological order and the relationship between past actions:

Chronological Order

The preterit indicates that an action occurred and was completed in the past, without reference to a previous action. It simply marks a past and isolated fact.
- They arrived at the station at 7 p.m.
  (They arrived, end of story.)
The past perfect places an action before another event or moment in the past. It is the "past of the past." It indicates that by the time the second action or event occurs, the first action was already completed.
- By the time I reached the venue, the concert had already started.
  (The action of starting is prior to my arrival.)

In our past perfect example, By the time can be replaced with When or After, depending on the desired nuance:

After I reached the venue, I realized the concert had already started.

The past perfect and the preterit can be combined in the same sentence to clearly show the sequence:

When I discovered the typo, the article had already been published.

Cause Link or Prior Context

The preterit is used to talk about a past event by simply describing what happened, without necessarily explaining what preceded it.
- I hurt my foot yesterday.
  (it's a simple statement.)
The past perfect highlights a cause/consequence link or a context that occurred before. It helps explain the origin or sequence of a situation.
- I was late for work because I had missed the bus earlier.

Time markers like as soon as, when, before, by the time, etc., indicate that an action (in the past perfect) is completed before another action (in the preterit).

Presence of a Reference Event

With the preterit, the past action is considered the main reference point.
- The meeting ended at 2 p.m. and everyone left.
  (this sequence of events is simply related.)
With the past perfect, a relationship is established with a moment prior to the reference event to clearly mark the chronology.
- When I arrived at the meeting room, everyone had already left.
  (the departure occurred before my arrival.)

Use of for and since with the past perfect

The past perfect is used with duration markers for and since to indicate how long or since when an action was taking place before another past event.

We had only been living in that house for a year when the landlord decided to sell it.

This construction emphasizes the period preceding the event in the preterit.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the preterit describes past facts at the first level (completed actions and events), while the past perfect highlights what happened even earlier or explains a situation by a prior action. If you don't need to specify that an action occurred before another, the preterit remains the simplest and most appropriate tense. To summarize:

Preterit: past action, completed, presented as the main event (The train left at 7 a.m.).
Past Perfect: action or situation that occurred before another past event (By the time I arrived, the train had already left.).
These two tenses can be combined in the same sentence to mark the chronology (past of the past).
Conjunctions when, after, as soon as and by the time help specify the sequence of actions.
Markers for and since are used with the past perfect (especially its continuous form) to emphasize the duration of an action before the main event.

We have written other courses on the perfect, you can find them here: