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Simple Past vs Past Perfect

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Simple Past vs Past Perfect

by Deepthi Subbu » Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:36 pm
Before John won the lottery , he was a poor man
Before John won the lottery , he had been a poor man

I am confused between using past perfect and simple past .

Since John was a poor man until he won the lottery , and if there are two action that happened in the past (one action before the other ) and if both are related to each other , we are supposed to use past perfect .

But what if there's a time indicator such as before/After which already describes that one action took place before the other -Are we still supposed to go with the past perfect rule?
Last edited by Deepthi Subbu on Sun Jan 09, 2011 10:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by bblast » Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:42 pm
IMO here perfect tense is not required as the word before already indicates that one event happened before the other..


If john won, he would.......correct
Before John won, he was.......correct
if john had won, he would have.....correct
If john wins, he will...........correct


hope this helps Deepthi
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by Deepthi Subbu » Sun Jan 09, 2011 10:25 pm
bblast wrote:IMO here perfect tense is not required as the word before already indicates that one event happened before the other..


If john won, he would.......correct
Before John won, he was.......correct
if john had won, he would have.....correct
If john wins, he will...........correct


hope this helps Deepthi
Even I assumed the same and chose the simple past but that's not the correct answer.Here's the explanation -

Before John won the lottery, he was a poor locksmith.

A) won the lottery, he was a poor locksmith.

B) had won the lottery, he was a poor locksmith.

C) won the lottery, he had been a poor locksmith.

D) won the lottery, he were a poor locksmith.

E) wins the lottery, he was a poor locksmith.

This sentence talks about two things in the past, 1 - won the lottery

2 - was a poor locksmith

Since John was a poor locksmith before he won the lottery so the two things are taking place at different time periods.

Hence the thing that took place earlier (was a poor locksmith) will take the past perfect tense 'had' and the thing that

happened later (won) will take the simple past tense 'won'.

Thus the correct answer is C.
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