The Plusquamperfekt (past perfect) is used to express actions that happened before a certain event in the past.
Here are the main things you need to know about this tense.
Plusquamperfekt - Usage
Rule 1: We use the past perfect in German to look back at something that happened before a past event. This tense is used together with the simple past.
German
Plusquamperfekt - Conjugation
Rule 2: To conjugate a verb in the past perfect, we need the simple past forms of "sein" or "haben" and the past participle.
Here's an example with the verb bleiben (to stay):
| ich war geblieben |
| du warst geblieben |
| er, sie, es war geblieben |
| wir waren geblieben |
| ihr wart geblieben |
| Sie waren geblieben |
And let's look at it in a sentence:
German