What is the past tense and the past perfect tense?

Answer 1

Past simple tense has got one verb in the past form -- I went to the shop yesterday.

Past perfect is formed with had + past participle -- I had gone to the shop.

Past simple is used to talk about something that happened at a specific time in the past and is now finished.

Past perfect is used to talk about an event in the past that happened before another event in the past. This second event is usually in past simple.

Eg The train had left when I arrived at the station.

had left (past perfect) happened before arrived(past simple).