Past Perfect

Carla Muniz

Professora licenciada em Letras

O Past Perfect ou Past Perfect Simple (Passado Perfeito ou Passado Perfeito Simples) é um tempo verbal usado para expressar ações passadas que aconteceram antes de outra ação que também ocorrera no passado.

Nesse tempo verbal é comum as frases serem formadas por alguns advérbios.

Os mais utilizados são:

• when (quando)
• just (acabado de; há pouco)
• already (já)
• by the time (no momento)
• ever (já; alguma vez)
• never (nunca)
• before (antes)
• after (depois)

Exemplos:

• I had already cleaned the house when my mother arrived. (Eu já tinha limpado a casa quando minha mãe chegou.)
• She had just left by the time he arrived. (Ela tinha acabado de sair quando ele chegou.)
• They did not come with us because they had visited this museum before. (Eles não vieram conosco porque tinham visitado este museu antes.)
• He asked me if I had ever been to Germany. (Ele me perguntou se eu já tinha estado na Alemanha.)

Formação do Past Perfect

O Past Perfect é formado pelo verbo auxiliar to have conjugado no Simple Past (had) + Past Participle do verbo principal.

Atenção! (Pay Attention!)

Todos os verbos regulares seguem um modelo de conjugação. No particípio passado, as flexões sempre são formadas pelo acréscimo das terminações –d, –ed ou –ied

Já os verbos irregulares, não seguem nenhum modelo ou regra de conjugação. Assim sendo, a melhor forma de conhecer suas flexões é consultar uma tabela de verbos.

Exemplos:

• Verbo to dance (regular) – particípio passado: danced
• Verbo to play (regular) – particípio passado: played
• Verbo to study (regular) – particípio passado: studied
• Verbo to go (irregular) – particípio passado: gone
• Verbo to be (irregular) – particípio passado: been

Veja também:

Verbos Irregulares em Inglês

Forma afirmativa (affirmative form)

As frases afirmativas no Past Perfect Simple são formadas da seguinte maneira:

Sujeito + verbo to have no Simple Past (had) + verbo principal no Past Participle + complemento

Exemplo:

You had changed your clothes before the end of the party. (Você tinha mudado suas roupas antes do final da festa).

Veja também:

Verbo To Have

Forma Negativa (negative form)

Nas frases negativas é necessário acrescentar o not após o verbo auxiliar:

Sujeito + verbo to have no Simple Past (had) + not + verbo principal no Past Participle + complemento

Exemplo:

You had not changed your clothes before the end of the party. (Você não tinha mudado suas roupas antes do final da festa.)

Veja também:

Passive Voice

Obs.: a forma negativa também pode ser escrita na forma contraída: had + not = hadn’t

Exemplo:

You hadn’t changed your clothes before the end of the party. (Você não tinha mudado suas roupas antes do final da festa.)

Veja também:

Simple Past

Forma Interrogativa (interrogative form)

Para fazer perguntas no Past Perfect Simple, o verbo auxiliar deve ser usado no início da frase, antes do sujeito:

Verbo to have no Simple Past + sujeito + verbo principal no Past Participle + complemento

Exemplo:

Had you changed your clothes before the end of the party? (Você tinha mudado suas roupas antes do fim da festa?)

Veja também:

Past Participle

Past Perfect Simple x Past Perfect Continuous

No Past Perfect Tense há duas formas de expressar ações passadas. Vejamos abaixo cada uma delas:

Past Perfect Simple

É usado para indicar ações no passado que ocorreram antes de outra ação no passado.

O Past Perfect Simple é formado pelo verbo auxiliar to have conjugado no Simple Past (had) + Past Participle do verbo principal.

Exemplos:

• I had finished the job when my boss arrived. (Eu tinha terminado o trabalho quando meu chefe chegou.) – AFFIRMATIVE FORM
• I had not finished the job when my boss arrived. (Eu não tinha terminado o trabalho quando meu chefe chegou.) – NEGATIVE FORM
• Had I finished the job when my boss arrived? (Eu tinha terminado o trabalho quando meu chefe chegou?) – INTERROGATIVE FORM

Veja também:

Verbos Regulares e Irregulares em Inglês

Past Perfect Continuous

É usado para indicar a continuidade de ações no passado que ocorreram antes de outra ação no passado.

O Past Perfect Continuous é formado pelo verbo to have conjugado no Simple Past (had) + verbo to be conjugado no Past Participle (been) + gerúndio do verbo principal.

Exemplos:

• I had been waiting for two hours when she arrived. (Eu tinha estado esperando por duas horas quando ela chegou.) – AFFIRMATIVE FORM
• I had not been waiting for two hours when she arrived. (Eu não tinha estado esperando por duas horas quando ela chegou.) – NEGATIVE FORM
• Had I been waiting for two hours when she arrived? (Eu tinha estado esperando por duas horas quando ela chegou?) – INTERROGATIVE FORM

Veja também:

Past Perfect Continuous

Complemente sua pesquisa sobre os verbos em inglês:

Vídeo (Video)

Assista o vídeo abaixo com um resumo do uso do Past Perfect e fique por dentro desse tempo verbal.

Exercícios (Exercises)

1. (Fundatec/2015)

Press me! The button that lies to you
The tube pulls in to a busy station along the London Underground’s Central Line. It is early evening on a Thursday. A gaggle of commuters assembles inside and outside the train, waiting for the doors to open. A moment of impatience grips one man who is nearest to them. He pushes the square, green-rimmed button which says “open”. A second later, the doors satisfyingly part. The crowds mingle, jostling on and off the train, and their journeys continue. Yet whether or not the traveller knew it, his finger had no effect on the mechanism.

Some would call this a “placebo button”– a button which, objectively speaking, provides no control over a system, but which to the user at least is psychologically fulfilling to push. It turns out that there are plentiful examples of buttons which do nothing and indeed other technologies which are purposefully designed to deceive us. But here’s the really surprising thing. Many increasingly argue that we actually benefit from the illusion that we are in control of something – even when, from the observer’s point of view, we’re not.

In 2013, BBC News Magazine discovered that pedestrian crossings all over the UK were the wellspring of placebo buttons. A crossing in central London had programmed intervals for red and green lights, for example. Pushing the button would only impact the length of these intervals between midnight and 7am. ___ several other cities during busy periods, the crossings were programmed to alternate their signals at a specific rate. The buttons did nothing, but a “wait” light would still come on when they were pressed and, yes, people still pressed them presumably believing that their actions were having an effect.

Certain psychologists would argue that the buttons were indeed having an effect – just not ___ the traffic lights themselves. Instead the effect is in the commuter’s minds. To understand this you have to go back to the early 1970s. At that time, psychologist Ellen Langer, now a professor ____ Harvard, was a Yale graduate student. During a five-card draw game of poker she dealt one set of cards in a haphazard order. “Everybody,” she says, “got crazy. The cards somehow belonged to the other person even though you couldn’t see any of them.” Langer decided to find out more about the way people regulated the playing of such games. She went to a casino where, at the slot machines, she found gamblers with elaborate ways of pulling the lever. At another time a “highly rational” fellow student tried to explain to her why tossing a pair of dice could be done in a certain way to affect the numbers which came up. “People believed that all of these behaviours were going to increase the probability of their winning,” she comments.

In 1975, she wrote a paper where she described the significance of these beliefs and coined a term for the effect that they had on people: the “illusion of control”. However, instead of framing this as an irrational delusion, Langer described the effect as a positive thing. “Feeling you have control over your world is a desirable state,” she explains. When it comes to those deceptive traffic light buttons, Langer says there could be a whole host of reasons why the placebo effect might be counted as a good thing. “Doing something is better than doing nothing, so people believe,” she says. “And when you go to press the button your attention is on the activity at hand. If I’m just standing at the corner, I may not even see the light change, or I might only catch the last part of the change, in which case I could put myself in danger.”

Also, if pedestrians wait together at the crossing and a few press the button impatiently, that creates a sense of togetherness with strangers which might otherwise be absent. All of these things may be taken as positive impacts on our mental state, and even socially reinforcing. It’s something to think about next time you cross the street.
(Source: Adapted from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150415-the-buttons-that-do-nothing)

In the sentence “A crossing in central London had programmed intervals for red and green lights”, the underlined verbal locution is in the ________________. If we put it in the present perfect continuous, it would be written as ______________.

Mark the alternative that correctly and respectively fill in the blanks above.

a) past perfect – had been programming
b) past perfect – has been programming
c) present perfect – have been programmed
d) present perfect – have being programmed
e) simple past – has programming

Ver Resposta

Alternativa correta: b) past perfect – has been programming

A letra b) é a alternativa correta pois “had programmed” segue a estrutura de formação do Past Perfect : had + verbo principal (neste caso to program) no Past Participle (programmed).

Para que a parte destacada da frase passe para o Present Perfect Continuous, devemos seguir a seguinte estrutura:

Present Perfect do verbo to be (has been) + verbo principal no gerúndio (programming).

2. Qual das frases abaixo não está no Past Perfect Simple:

a) Had you been waiting long before the airplane arrived?
b) You had not studied English before you moved to Brazil.
c) We had had that car for fifteen years before it broke down.
d) Before I came here, I had spoken to Jonh.
e) He had written a letter to Carlos.

Ver Resposta

Alternativa correta: a) Had you been waiting long before the airplane arrived?

A alternativa a) apresenta dois tempos verbais mas nenhum deles é o Past Perfect: 1) Past Perfect Continuous (had been waiting) e 2) Simple Past (arrived).

Veja também:

Third Conditional

3. Escreva a frase abaixo no Past Perfect Simple nas formas afirmativa, negativa e interrogativa:

I watched a good film this weekend.

Ver Resposta

AFFIRMATIVE FORM:

I had watched a good film this weekend.

Para formar frases afirmativas no Past Perfect, basta seguir a seguinte estrutura:

Sujeito + verbo to have no Simple Past (had) + verbo principal no Past Participle + complemento

NEGATIVE FORM:

I had not watched a good film this weekend.

Para formar frases negativas no Past Perfect, basta seguir a seguinte estrutura:

Sujeito + verbo to have no Simple Past (had) + not + verbo principal no Past Participle + complemento

INTERROGATIVE FORM:

Had I watched a good film this weekend?

Para formar frases interrogativas no Past Perfect, basta seguir a seguinte estrutura:

Verbo to have no Simple Past (had) + sujeito + verbo principal no Past Participle + complemento

Veja também:

Past Continuous

4. Conjugue o verbo to have na forma afirmativa do Past Perfect Simple:

Ver Resposta

I had had
You had had
He/She/It had had
We had had
You had had
They had had

Para formar frases afirmativas no Past Perfect, basta seguir a seguinte estrutura:

Sujeito + verbo to have no Simple Past (had) + verbo principal no Past Participle + complemento.

Confira um exemplo de frase com o verbo to have flexionado no Past Perfect Simple:

If I had had the opportunity, I would have studied abroad. (Se eu tivesse tido oportunidade, teria estudado no exterior.)

É importante referir que no Past Perfect, as flexões verbais são iguais para todos os pronomes pessoais.

Veja também:

Present Perfect Continuous

Carla Muniz

Professora, lexicógrafa, tradutora, produtora de conteúdos e revisora. Licenciada em Letras (Português, Inglês e Literaturas) pelas Faculdades Integradas Simonsen, em 2002.

Present Perfect Tense

The Present Perfect tense is a rather important tense in English, but it gives speakers of some languages a difficult time. That is because it uses concepts or ideas that do not exist in those languages. In fact, the structure of the Present Perfect is very simple. The problems come with the use of the tense. In addition, there are some differences in usage between British and American English.

In this lesson we look at the structure and use of the Present Perfect tense, as well as the use of for and since, followed by a quiz to check your understanding.

The Present Perfect tense is really a very interesting tense, and a very useful one. Try not to translate the Present Perfect into your language. Just try to accept the concepts of this tense and learn to “think” Present Perfect! You will soon learn to like the Present Perfect tense!

How do we make the Present Perfect tense?

The structure of the Present Perfect is:

subject
+
auxiliary have
+
main verb

conjugated in Present Simple

 

have, has
past participle

The auxiliary verb (have) is conjugated in the Present Simple: have, has

The main verb is invariable in past participle form: -ed (or irregular)

For negative sentences we insert not between the auxiliary verb and the main verb.

For question sentences, we exchange the subject and the auxiliary verb.

Look at these example sentences with the Present Perfect tense:

 
subject
auxiliary verb
 
main verb
 

+
I
have
 
seen
ET.

+
You
have
 
eaten
mine.

–
She
has
not
been
to Rome.

–
We
have
not
played
football.

?
Have
you
 
finished?
 

?
Have
they
 
done
it?

Contraction with Present Perfect

When we use the Present Perfect in speaking, we often contract the subject and auxiliary verb. We also sometimes do this in informal writing.

I have
I’ve

You have
You’ve

He has
She has
It has
John has
The car has
He’s
She’s
It’s
John’s
The car’s

We have
We’ve

They have
They’ve

• You’ve told me that before.
• John’s seen Harry Potter.

In negative sentences, we may contract the auxiliary verb and “not”:

• You haven’t won the contest.
• She hasn’t heard from him.

He’s or he’s??? Be careful! The ‘s contraction is used for the auxiliary verbs and . For example, “It’s eaten” can mean:

• It has eaten. (Present Perfect tense, active voice)
• It is eaten. (Present Simple tense, passive voice)

It is usually clear from the context.

or??? Be careful! Thecontraction is used for the auxiliary verbs. For example, “It’s eaten” can mean:It is usually clear from the context.

How do we use the Present Perfect tense?

This tense is called the Present Perfect tense. There is always a connection with the past and with the present.

We use the Present Perfect to talk about:

• experience
• change
• continuing situation

Present Perfect for experience

We often use the Present Perfect to talk about experience from the past. We are not interested in when you did something. We only want to know if you did it:

I have seen an alien.
He has lived in Bangkok.
Have you been there?
We have never eaten caviar.

past
present
future

!!!
 

The action or state was in the past.
In my head, I have a memory now.
 

Connection with past: the event was in the past
Connection with present: in my head, now, I have a memory of the event; I know something about the event; I have experience of it

Present Perfect for change

We also use the Present Perfect to talk about a change, or new information:

I have bought a car.

past
present
future

–
+
 

Last week I didn’t have a car.
Now I have a car.
 

John has broken his leg.

past
present
future

+
–
 

Yesterday John had a good leg.
Now he has a bad leg.
 

Has the price gone up?

past
present
future

+
–
 

Was the price $1.50 yesterday?
Is the price $1.70 today?
 

The police have arrested the killer.

past
present
future

–
+
 

Yesterday the killer was free.
Now he is in prison.
 

Connection with past: the past is the opposite of the present
Connection with present: the present is the opposite of the past

Americans do use the Present Perfect but less than British speakers. Americans often use the Past Simple tense instead. An American might say “Did you have lunch?”, where a British person would say “Have you had lunch?”

Present Perfect for continuing situation

We often use the Present Perfect to talk about a continuing situation. This is a state that started in the past and continues in the present (and will probably continue into the future). This is a situation (not an action). We usually use for or since with this structure.

I have worked here since June.
He has been ill for 2 days.
How long have you known Tara (for)?

past
present
future

 

 

The situation started in the past.
It continues up to now.
(It will probably continue into the future.)

Connection with past: the situation started in the past.
Connection with present: the situation continues in the present.

For and Since with Present Perfect tense

We often use for and since with perfect tenses:

• We use for to talk about a period of time: five minutes, two weeks, six years
• We use since to talk about a point in past time: 9 o’clock, 1st January, Monday

for
since

a period of time
a point in past time
– – – – – – – – – – – –
– • – – – – – – – – – –

20 minutes
6.15pm

three days
Monday

6 months
January

4 years
1994

2 centuries
1800

a long time
I left school

ever
the beginning of time

etc
etc

Look at these example sentences using for and since with the Present Perfect tense:

• I have been here for twenty minutes.
• I have been here since 9 o’clock.
• John hasn’t called for six months.
• John hasn’t called since February.
• He has worked in New York for a long time.
• He has worked in New York since he left school.

For can be used with all tenses. Since is usually used with perfect tenses only.

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