In Persian, the past perfect is constructed by the addition of the past copulas to the past participle. The stress falls on the last syllable of the participle (note that the construction of the past perfect is dependent upon the past participle).
| We had said. | gofte budim | گفته بودیم |
| You had said. plural | gofte budid | گفته بودید |
| They had said. | gofte budand | گفته بودند |
| I had said. | gofte budam | گفته بودم |
| You had said. singular | gofte budi | گفته بودی |
| He/she had said. | gofte bud | گفته بود |
The negative is constructed by the addition of the stressed prefix [-na] to the participle, as in نگفته بودم nagofte budam “I had not said.”
The past perfect, sometimes also called pluperfect, indicates that two actions took place—and completed—in the past, while one preceded the other.
By and large, the Persian past perfect corresponds to the English past perfect:
| I had seen. | dide budam | دیده بودم |
| You had sat. singular | nešaste budi | نشسته بودی |
| She/he had gone. | rafte bud | رفته بود |
| We had eaten. | xorde budim | خورده بودیم |
| You had heard. plural | šanide budid | شنیده بودید |
| They had lived. | zendegi karde budand | زندگی کرده بودند |
In many instances it is used in sentences in which the adverb “already” is used in English:
وقتی که رسیدم، آن ها شروع کرده بودند
vaqti ke rasidam, ān hā šoru’ karde budand
“When I arrived, they had already started.”
پیش از آن، آنجا را دیده بودم
piš az ān, ānjā rā dide budam
“I had already seen that place before.”
پارسال به اینجا آمدند، امّا سال قبل هم آمده بودند
pārsāl be injā āmadand, ammā sāl-e qabl ham āmade budand
“They came her last year, but they had already come the year before.”
With the adverb هنوز hanuz ‘yet, still’ and a negative verb in the past perfect clause, followed by the conjunction که ke ‘that, which, when’ sentences are constructed whose notion equates the idiomatic English, “scarcely had subject followed by a past participle verb…that/when…verb in the past absolute” or “no sooner had subject followed by a past participle verb…than…verb in the past absolute”:
هنوز ننشسته بودم، که در باز شد
hanuz nanešaste budam, ke dar bāz šod
“Scarcely had I sat down when the door opened.”
“No sooner had I sat down than the door opened.”
هنوز لای مجلّه را باز نکرده بودم، که آن را از من گرفت.
hanuz lā-ye majalle rā bāz nakarde budam, ke ān rā az man gereft
“Scarcely had I opened the magazine when he/she took it from me.”
“No sooner had I opened the magazine than he/she took it from me.”
Sometimes in an emphatic statement the order of the “when-clauses” is reversed. In this case, of the compound adverb وقتی که vaqti ke ‘when’ only ke is used and the emphasis falls upon the first clause. Generally speaking, this construction expresses the impossibility of the reversing an action which has already taken place (i.e., it is too late to undo it). Compare the following sentences:
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