This page has audio!
Past Perfect
Conjugation
The Persian past perfect is made up of two parts:
1. past participle of the verb
2. corresponding past simple tense form of the verb “to be”
Here is an example for the verb “to read”:
Verb Infinitive:
خواندن
Past Stem:
خواند
خوانده بودم
خوانده بودی
خوانده بود
خوانده بودیم
خوانده بودید
خوانده بودند
[I] had read
[you] had read
[he/she/it] had read
[we] had read
[you (pl.)] had read
[they] had read
Usage
The Persian past perfect is almost exactly like the English past perfect.
همه‌جا را خوب گشته بودند.
دشمن همه‌ی جاده‌ها را بسته بود.
تا آن روز هیچ‌وقت مادرش را ندیده بودم.
بیست سال گذشته بود اما
تهران تقریباً هیچ فرقی نکرده بود.
They had searched everywhere well.
The enemy had blocked all the roads.
I had never seen his/her mother till that day.
Twenty years had passed but
Tehran had almost not changed at all.