Pluperfect - Voltooid verleden tijd

Click here for self-correcting exercises on the pluperfect.
The pluperfect is a tense which, like the perfect tense, uses the auxiliaries hebben and zijn plus the past participle of the verb. The difference is that in the pluperfect the auxiliaries occur in the past tense.

Marina had Antwerpen bezocht. Marina had visited Antwerpen.
Ze was er met de bus naartoe gegaan. She had gone there by bus.

In the examples above, had and was are the singular past tense forms of the auxiliaries hebben and zijn. Note that the plural past tense forms of these auxiliaries are hadden and waren. All the other rules for forming the perfect tense apply when forming the pluperfect.

The pluperfect can be used to describe a past event within the description of another past event. E.g.:

De dokter was hier gisteren. The doctor was here yesterday.
Hij was eerst bij mijn buren geweest. He had been to see my neighbours first.

Here the doctor's visit is described as an event in the past (therefore the past tense) in relation to which his visit to the neighbours had occurred earlier. So the visit to the neighbors had occurred in the past at the time when the doctor visited the speaker.

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