{"id":51580,"date":"2018-01-18T01:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T01:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/aee\/aee-881-natives-actually-use-past-perfect\/"},"modified":"2023-04-25T15:49:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T15:49:21","slug":"aee-881-natives-actually-use-past-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allearsenglish.com\/aee-881-natives-actually-use-past-perfect\/","title":{"rendered":"AEE 881: Do Natives Actually Use the Past Perfect?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know when to use the past perfect tense in English?<\/p>\n<p>Do you easily get confused?<\/p>\n<p>Today we&#8217;ll show you exactly how and when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allearsenglish.com\/aee-856-natives-use-likewise\/\">natives<\/a> use it so that you can connect more easily and sound more natural in English.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This tense is definitely used much less than the present or present perfect or the simple past. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Today we start with a question from a listener:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><strong>In conversational English, do you use the past perfect tense or does it sound too formal so you usually try to avoid it? For example, would you use sentences like&#8221;I had met her before you introduce us,&#8221; &#8220;You said you had bought a new ca,&#8221; &#8220;if I had studied harder for the exam, I\u2019d have passed it,&#8221; etc?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Sometimes I hear you using it in the show but it may be because you\u2019re teachers, educated, etc..<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Similar with the future perfect tense. Does it sound natural? Like &#8220;I\u2019ll have finished cooking by the time you get home,&#8221; &#8220;next week we\u2019ll have been together for ten years,&#8221; etc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>-Ondrej<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Great question from Ondrej!<\/p>\n<p>Today we&#8217;ll break it down and make the answer as clear as possible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Three most common conversational situations with past perfect:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1) retelling a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.allearsenglish.com\/pantipas-adventure-story-city-boston-classroom\/\"> story<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2) conditionals- if y had happened, x would have happened<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3) reported speech- you said you had..<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How is this usually taught by English teachers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I used to teach the past perfect using timelines and I would have students label events in their lives and say what happened before something else but I think in a conversation situation, unless you\u2019re telling a story to give background, it\u2019s not common to say things like \u201cI had already visited Rome 3 times by the time I saw Paris.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>So the two situations where it\u2019s more common:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a story and when you use the 3rd conditional.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Listen to the episode for a real speaking example of how it&#8217;s used in a story.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>What about the future perfect?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To answer the second part of your question about the future perfect tense, \u201cI will have finished cooking by the time you get home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is not very common.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The only time I use this is when I am setting goals and even then it\u2019s not often verbalized.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might say, &#8220;By the end of 2018 I will have climbed Mt. Aconcagua, I will have learned to scuba dive&#8221;&nbsp; but it\u2019s a mouthful to say that so instead we&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">might say: I\u2019m gonna climb Mt. Aconcagua in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>TAKEAWAY: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These two tenses are not super common and are used only for specific situations that we have mentioned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I think the textbooks and schools put these at the end of every syllabus as one of the final units and give it equal weight compared with the present perfect or the simple past, but if you really look at the frequency of use then you\u2019ll see that they shouldn\u2019t be weighted the same way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A<a href=\"https:\/\/www.allearsenglish.com\/aee-655-smartest-fastest-way-understand-80-vocabulary-words-english\/\"> smarter way to learn English<\/a> is figure out which tenses native speakers rely on heavily and focus 80% of your time on those.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What questions do you have?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Let us know in the comments below.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know when to use the past perfect tense in English? Do you easily get confused? Today we&#8217;ll show you exactly how and when natives use it so that you can connect more easily and sound more natural in English. This tense is definitely&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allearsenglish.com\/aee-881-natives-actually-use-past-perfect\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"category":[1,296,298],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-fluency","category-english-grammar","category-grammar-tenses"],"acf":{"podcast_link":"https:\/\/www.podtrac.com\/pts\/redirect.mp3\/pdst.fm\/e\/chrt.fm\/track\/CB27B5\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/ALLE6012265273.mp3?updated=1648372326"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.8 (Yoast SEO v25.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>AEE 881: Do Natives Actually Use the Past Perfect? | All Ears English Podcast<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allearsenglish.com\/aee-881-natives-actually-use-past-perfect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AEE 881: Do Natives Actually Use the Past Perfect?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do you know when to use the past perfect tense in English? 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