Image by Ron McGeary 
Lesson #118: The Past Perfect Tense
Do you think you’re ready to learn all about one more tense in Hindi? Don’t worry, after this one there’s only a few more to go! Today we’re going to look at what we call the Past Perfect Tense. So what is the Past Perfect Tense? Well it’s easy, it’s just sentences that use the word ‘had’ like, ‘I had gone’, ‘They had eaten’, ‘She had given’ etc. We’ll see plenty of examples as we go through so don’t get confused just yet!
Can you remember back to Lesson #110, when we saw what’s called the Present Perfect Tense? Well the good news is that the Past Perfect Tense is very similar, so it might be a good idea to revise over that lesson first!
So are you ready to begin? Let’s get straight to it then! Just like the Present Perfect Tense from Lesson #110, we first start with a simple Past Tense sentence first, so for example we can say…
मैं नौ बजे गया main nau baje gayaa
- I went at nine o’clock (said by a male)
This is just the Past Tense! So how do we change this to the Past Perfect Tense, ‘I had gone at nine o’clock’, then? Well it’s easy than you think, we just say…
मैं नौ बजे गया था main nau baje gayaa thaa
- I had gone at nine o’clock (said by a male)
Can you see what’s changed? That’s right, we’ve added था thaa to the end, and this has changed the meaning from ‘I went at nine o’clock’ to ‘I had gone at nine o’clock’.
So the rule is very simple, to change a Past Tense sentence to a Past Perfect Tense sentence we just add था thaa, थे the, थी thee or थीं theen to the end, easy!
Are you following this? Great! Let’s see another example then, this time we’re going to say ‘She had sat down’. So just like before we start with Simple Past Tense sentence, ‘She sat down’…
वह बैठ गई voh baith gaee - She sat down
And now this time we add थी thee to agree with Feminine subject, she, so our Past Perfect Tense sentence is…
वह बैठ गई थी voh baith gaee thee - She had sat down
Can you see what we’ve done here? Yeah? Great! Ok now let’s look at a Transitive example. So we’re going to start with the Past Tense sentence ‘I gave you two apples’ (Using our Compound Verbs from Lesson #114)…
मैंने आपको दो सेब दे दिए - mainne aapko do seb de die
- I gave you two apples.
Now to change this to the Past Perfect Tense, ‘I had given you two apples’, we simply add थे the to the end, agreeing, like the verb, with the word सेब seb - Apples (Masculine Plural). So we say…
मैंने आपको दो सेब दे दिए थे - mainne aapko do seb de die the
- I had given you two apples.
Got it? If you have any questions at all then be sure to ask me in the comments section below! Let’s see another example…
भेड़ ने गंदा पानी पिया था bher ne gandaa paanee piyaa thaa
- The sheep had drunk dirty water
Can you follow this example? We use था thaa here because, like the verb, it agrees with the word पानी paanee - Water (M). See it’s really quite easy! Can you manage a few final examples before you try it yourself?
उनहोंने आज के अख़बार में कहानी पढ़ी थी
unhonne aaj ke akhbaar men kahaanee parhee thee
- They had read a story in today’s newspaper.
Phew that’s quite a tricky a long example! We’ve met all these words before though so you should be able to follow it. We use थी thee because, like the verb, it agrees with the word कहानी kahaanee - Story (F).
मैं अपने पलंग पर सोई थी main apne palang par soee thee
- I had slept on my bed (said by a female)
आप अमित से नहीं मिले थे aap amit se naheen mile the
- You had not met Amit
As you can see in that last example, making the negative case is really easy, you just add नहीं naheen just before the verb!
Phew ok, did you follow of the examples in this lesson? If not then please feel free to leave me a question just below and I’ll do my best to help you out! Now it’s your turn! Below there’s 4 English sentences, I want you to try and translate them into Hindi. Leave your answers in a comment and I’ll let you know how you’ve done!
- I had eaten.
- They had gone
- Prakash had spoken Urdu
- He had taken my car (गाड़ी gaaree - Car (F))
So be sure to leave a comment below with your answer, even if they are only guesses!
