Korean Job Discussion Forums

[afsjesse]

Can anyone explain the differences between these two tenses? I cant put the reasons to words and my co teachers are wondering about the differences.

[Easter Clark]

I find that google is more helpful regarding grammar queries than Dave's--people just end up getting into arguments here.

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simple-past

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/past-perfect-simple

[jadarite]

Simple past is 1 event in the past, past perfect is used with simple past to talk about 2 events in the past. It seems like there is a rule where you have to use past perfect for the first event that actually happened (but I haven't found any resources to back that up besides example sentences).

I went to school. / I ate breakfast.

I had eaten breakfast before I went to school.
Before I went to school, I had eaten breakfast.
Before I had gone to school, I ate breakfast. (Doesn't sound wrong, but maybe there is a grammar rule out there that makes this wrong.)

It's very common in conversation to simplify things and just say, "Before I went to school, I ate breakfast."

(Let the argument games begin )

[Tobias]

Sure, I'll bite.

The perfect tenses are used to emphasize the subject's status, condition, or experience.

The past perfect is used to express an action that began in past at T1 and continued (yes, it's progressing) to a later time, also in the past, T2. At T2, a simple past action happens that affects the subject, which at that time has a certain status, experience, or condition. The subject's status is revealed using the past perfect tense.

I had lived in Busan for 12 years when my family moved to Seoul in 1986.

The student had already finished his exam when I arrived yesterday.

I had fallen down the cliff and broken my leg when you came along the trail in 1980.

[loose_ends]

[Tobias]

Correct. I was going to make a note of that, but then I thought about the accumulating status, condition, or experience. The lifeboats weren't removed all at the same time. It took time to get them off, T1--T2. That would be 'continuous', so I just let it be.