Is it possible to be grammatically correct without using past perfect?

Question

Can you guys please help with which verb tense to use when talking about numerous specific events?

In the example below, I'm not quite sure if past perfect really is necessary.

"She sent me a new book as soon as I finished the book."

"She sent me a new book as soon as I had finished the book"

Then in the example below, I'm not sure if it will be incorrect without using past tense.

"Do you remember when my son got sick last Tuesday and I had to go pick him up? That's why I got worried when his teacher called me this morning."

"Do you remember when my son had gotten sick last Tuesday and I had had to go pick him up? That's why I got worried when his teacher called me this morning."

In the example below, I'm not even sure how to change it into past perfect. Maybe it's because it is not necessary at all?

"He said that the moment he first met her, he felt something special and began to keep a diary."

Edit: I don't really understand the answer that was given to me.

Why should I use past perfect at all in my "Do you remember when my son got sick" example? Am I not explaining things in chronological order? I thought I was starting to grasp this past perfect thing, but now I'm even more confused.

Also, Why is it not "He said that the moment he had first met her, he had felt something and had begun to keep a diary"?

Didn't the meeting take place before his saying it? Or is "first met her" modifying what kind of moment it was? Also, didn't the "feeling something" and "beginning to keep a diary" happen simultaneously?

Answer 1

1. The first question is about the tense we should use after "as soon as". In a sentence such as this:

I had left when the phone rang.

you need to use the past perfect in the second clause to show which action came first and which – second. However, when you use “as soon as”, the sequence is clear and it is normally a matter of preference which one to use, so both your examples will be correct. In American English the preference would normally be past simple. The past perfect would emphasize the fact that one action was complete before the other one occurred. (an explanation given in Grammar for Teachers by Andrea DeCapua)

2. In the second pair of examples they are both correct again. It is unnecessary to use past perfect because the time is mentioned and the sequence of events is clear. Also, the actions are described in the order in which they occurred. You can use the past perfect if you want, to emphasize that one was before the other.

3. The third question was about the sentence

He said that the moment he first met her, he felt something special and began to keep a diary.

The actual words the man said must have been:

"The moment I first met her, I felt something special and began to keep a diary."

When you report his words and begin with “He said”, the entire phrase shifts one tense back and becomes:

He said that the moment he had first met her, he had felt something special and had begun to keep a diary.

Although this is the grammatically correct sentence, it is very common that the past simple does not become past perfect in indirect speech. When reporting, native speakers tend to make present tenses past ("I am studying" - "She said she was studying") but very often do not care to make the past tenses perfect, as grammar books always teach us we should.

That is what makes both these sentences correct: "He said that the moment he first met her, he felt something special and began to keep a diary." and “He said that the moment he had first met her, he had felt something special and had begun to keep a diary.” (have a look at the end of this page)

Answer 2

You might want to read Past Perfect; it seems to explain it pretty well.

In the first pair, the second phrase is correct, though I think it would be more natural to say "As soon as I had finished the book she sent me a new book."

In the second pair, I think it should be:

Do you remember when my son had gotten sick last Tuesday and I had to go pick him up? That's why I got worried when his teacher called me this morning.

"Had had to go" may be OK in some phrases, but in past perfect tense it should be "had gone."

And I think that your third example should be:

He said that the moment he first met her, he had felt something special and began to keep a diary.

Answer 3

The primary function of the past perfect tense is to talk about the "past before the past". A past perfect sentence creates a chronological order and link between two events in the past. In some cases past simple tense could be used to convey the same information, but past perfect tense should be used as it makes the order of events much more unambiguous and the sentence structure more natural.

In the first example there are two events/actions:

"She sent me a new book as soon as I had finished the book."

"She sent me a new book" is an event in the past. "I had finished the book" is the past perfect portion, and signals that the book was finished prior to the new one being sent. Since the new book was sent in the past, the book was read in the "past before the past". It may also be helpful to visualize this via a timeline, an example of which can be found here.

Now apply these same rules of ordering events to the second example:

"Do you remember when my son got sick last Tuesday and I had to go pick him up? That's why I got worried when his teacher called me this morning."

We can infer that the son got sick prior to having to go to pick him up, and likewise that his teacher called prior to getting worried. So now we change it to past perfect tense to get:

"Do you remember when my son had gotten sick last Tuesday and I had to go pick him up? That's why I got worried when his teacher had called me this morning."

The third example is a little bit different because it uses reported speech (apparently incorrectly, but that is another topic).

"He said that the moment he first met her, he felt something special and began to keep a diary."

However we can still infer the order of events and change to past perfect tense to be more clear. We infer that feeling something special came prior to keeping a diary. Then the sentence changes to:

"He said that the moment he first met her, he had felt something special and began to keep a diary."

To summarize:

• Past perfect tense links two (or more) events which each occured in the past
• Past perfect is preferred over past simple for decriptions of two (or more) events in the past

Why should I use past perfect at all in my "Do you remember when my son got sick" example? Am I not explaining things in chronological order? I thought I was starting to grasp this past perfect thing, but now I'm even more confused.

Hopefully this is more clear now, the past perfect is used in this sentence to emphasize that there were two events, which happened in a certain order, both in the past.

Also, Why is it not "He said that the moment he had first met her, he had felt something and had begun to keep a diary"?
Didn't the meeting take place before his saying it? Or is "first met her" modifying what kind of moment it was? Also, didn't the "feeling something" and "beginning to keep a diary" happen simultaneously?

Good questions. The phrase "the moment he first met her" is specifying a time, just the same as "as soon as" and "last Tuesday" did in the first and second examples, it isn't itself an action/event. "Feeling something" and "beginning to keep a diary" do sound like they are happening simultaneously in the original example sentence, even though one is obviously the cause of the other. This further demonstrates how ambiguous using past simple instead of past perfect can be. The entire purpose of the past perfect tense is to have a clear timeline and no ambiguity of what happened first.

I apologize in advance for the wall of text. Hopefully it has enough detail to give you a clear understanding.

Answer 4

I don't think the second example needed to have the changes to the past perfect. The changes sound unnatural to me. (I am a native American English speaker.) The sequence of events is clear without the changes.

If the sentences are changed in other ways, then you might make changes to show the time differences:

I had to go pick up my son because he had gotten sick.

OR

I had to go pick up my son who had gotten sick.

Maybe you could change the next sentence, too, but I think it sounds like the parent got worried almost at the same time as he received the call:

I got worried because the teacher called me.

But:

I got worried because the teacher had called and left a message for me.

Answer 5

The first sample is correct but far too many "hads."

Uses past perfect (correct usage) and the "hads" nearly drove me nuts The hads were inserted by an editor on a passage from book draft: They had stopped at Fenway Park, where he had taken her picture and told her about the exciting games he had attended there. They had also gone to the Northside for some of the best Italian food in America, though she had visited Italy with her parents when she was a high school student. They had ordered three bottles of wine, and by the time they left the restaurant, they were flying high but had walked arm in arm around the neighborhood until sobering up enough to drive home. They had also visited the ocean, for which Janice had a special affinity, before flying home.

No "hads" and I believe the passage reads much better: They stopped at Fenway Park, where he took her picture and told her about the exciting games he attended there. They also went to the Northside for some of the best Italian food in America, though she visited Italy with her parents when she was a high school student. They ordered three bottles of wine, and by the time they left the restaurant they were flying high but still walked arm in arm around the neighborhood until sobering up enough to drive home. They also visited the ocean, for which Janice had a special affinity, before flying home.

Incorrect but the absence of "hads" was not missed!.