I had just arrived or I just arrived?

[worcester]

Hi everyone,

I do not understand why Past Perfect is used at the beginning here.

"I had just arrived home last night when I remembered that I had left my keys in the office." (example taken from "Headway")

Why do we need "HAD" at the beginning of the sentence here? Can't we just say it like this:

"I just arrived home last night when I remembered that I had left my keys in the office." (first "arrived" then "remembered" consecutive actions)

Thank you.

 

[bhaisahab]

Hi everyone,

I do not understand why Past Perfect is used at the beginning here.

"I had just arrived home last night when I remembered that I had left my keys in the office." (example taken from "Headway")

Why do we need "HAD" at the beginning of the sentence here? Can't we just say it like this:

"I just arrived home last night when I remembered that I had left my keys in the office." (first "arrived" then "remembered" consecutive actions)

Thank you.

You arrived home before you remembered.

 

[Matthew Wai]

In this post, Barb_D said "You need some other act in the past to use the past perfect".
Then may I say "You need to use the past perfect when it happened before some other act in the past"?

 

[Tdol]

In this post, Barb_D said "You need some other act in the past to use the past perfect".
Then may I say "You need to use the past perfect when it happened before some other act in the past"?

It could be another action or a time. Also, we don't always have to use the past perfect- in most narratives events happens one after the other but we use the past. The past perfect helps connect the two things.

 

[Tdol]

Why do we need "HAD" at the beginning of the sentence here? Can't we just say it like this:

"I just arrived home last night when I remembered that I had left my keys in the office." (first "arrived" then "remembered" consecutive actions)

You could say I arrived home and remembered that.... However, the simple past doesn't work here with just...when, which are deliberately sequencing the actions.