I Had Seen It Before

If you've studied English for a while now, you have probably noticed that there are several different time possibilities when you talk about actions. Something can happen in the future, the present, or the past. But what if you're talking about something that happened in the past, and then reference something that happened even before that? How would you put that into words?

When we want to recount something that happened before something else happened, we need the help of had, and we are also going to use a third form of the action, called the past participle.

Some common examples of this are:

Had been - tinha sido
Had gone - tinha ido
Had seen - tinha visto
Had thought - tinha pensado

Together, these words create a time that is kind of like the past of the past, for you to use whenever you refer to something that happened before something else did.

Let's take a look at some other examples.

I had tried thai food before the party last week.
Eu tinha experimentado comida thailandesa antes da festa semana passada.

She'd never gone skating before then.
Ela nunca tinha ido patinar antes de então.

We had taken English lessons before going to the USA.
Nós tínhamos feito aulas de inglês antes de ir pros EUA.

Kelly knew she had seen that man before.
Kelly sabia que ela tinha visto aquele homem antes.

See? Not so bad, right? With a little practice, you will be speaking the past of the past like an old pro.

Katie Smith