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Is it correct to say: "I owned it for 3 years before selling it"? Or should we say: "I owned it for 3 years before I sold it"? Or should we say "I had owned it for 3 years before I sold it. I'm confused about whether we can use the 1st sentence as we were using a present continuous sentence with a past one.

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  • There is no present continuous in your sentences.
    – Lambie
    Commented Mar 3, 2023 at 16:30
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    "I owned it for 3 years before selling it" suggests more focus on the process of selling, while "I owned it for 3 years before I sold it" suggests the focus is on you no longer possessing it. "I had owned it for 3 years before I sold it" would fit in a past-tense narration. This is all standard English grammar, the normal use of tenses: it's not hard.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Mar 3, 2023 at 22:19

3 Answers 3

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These are both acceptable. "Sold" is the past participle, which possibly suggests a bit more of "depth of time" -- but this is extremely subtle. I don't believe there's any significant difference to a native speaker.

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The first two are good and exactly equivalent in meaning.

The third one's pluperfect+ simple past match is very unlikely.

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  • But, why can't we use the third sentence?Isn't it the exact definition of past perfect (a past action before another past action)?
    – Arjun
    Commented Sep 26, 2022 at 3:47
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    @Arjun Actually you can, if you are talking about something that happened quite some time ago. For instance "I had a Cadillac in the late 1980s but I needed money early in the 90s. I had owned it for five years before I sold it."
    – BoldBen
    Commented Sep 26, 2022 at 8:09
  • @BoldBen While it's plausible that someone might say that, consider that it's strictly worse than the fully coordinated "I'd sold it".
    – Luke Sawczak
    Commented Sep 26, 2022 at 10:36
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    @Arjun "I had owned it for three years before I sold it" is looking back on the past. Almost story-telling. The differences are really subtle. However, if I heard "I..had..sold" I would possibly understand more of a gap in time than "I owned it..." -- This is quite complicated stuff and I would encourage you to read this Wikipedia article (or their list of sources): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tense%E2%80%93aspect%E2%80%93mood
    – equin0x80
    Commented Mar 3, 2023 at 17:07
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“I had owned it [past perfect] before I sold [simple past] it “ the owning occurred before it was *sold. *

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