past perfect usage with before

Question

I am reviewing rules for past perfect tenses. I found the sentence below that is mentioned as example.

  You had studied English before you moved to New York.

What is the difference in meaning between this example and a sentence using 2 past simple?

  You studied English before you moved to New York.

Is the tense with 2 past simple correct or is expressing no meaning at all?

Another example where I cannot see the difference is the following

  Tony knew Istanbul so well because he had visited the city several times.

How does this differ with

  Tony knew Istanbul so well because he visited the city several times.

Of interest: How do the tenses in English correspond temporally to one another? — choster, Jan 21 '14 at 23:41
Such sentences do not occur in a vacuum; they are parts of narratives which provide contexts--Reference Times--for the temporal references. Without those contexts it is impossible to say what differences might be expressed by the variants. — StoneyB on hiatus, Jan 21 '14 at 23:57
@AbruzzoForteeGentile ell.se is the English learners site: http://ell.stackexchange.com/ — nxx, Jan 22 '14 at 14:13

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 21 '14 at 23:36

2

Past Perfect is used to mark one event in the past as happening earlier than another. Since 'before' does the same thing, you don't need past perfect in the example.

So "You had studied English when you went to New York" shows that the study was completed before the travel.

answered Jan 21 '14 at 23:36

Oldcat

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Thank a lot. Probably if I used e.g "Before Alan moved to New York he had studied English for 3 years" would have made more sense as Past Simple renders the idea of actions in chronological order. CAn you tell me something about the second example? – Abruzzo Forte e Gentile Jan 21 '14 at 23:51
To me the difference is again obscured by "because" and "several times". These give the two clauses the proper order in time without the need for past perfect. Causes invariably come before effects, so "because" tells you that the second half comes before the first. – Oldcat Jan 21 '14 at 23:59

nxx · Answer 2 · 2014-01-22T14:06:04.753

I agree with Oldcat that before negates the need to use past perfect. The word choice makes the chronology of events clear, rather than the tense: both are in the past, but one was "before" the other. But to me using "when" sounds like the person started studying in New York, like it should be "You studied English when [once/after] you went to New York". Perhaps this is a difference between American and British English.

In the second sentence, we already have past simple "knew": the visits were before the knowing, so "knew" and "had visited". To me this is the more natural construction, as "several times" does not in itself indicate the chronology of events. knew + visited is like the present knows + visits, which would have to use "often", or "a lot", not "several times".

Why the downvote? I think it would be helpful to the OP if you could explain why you think I'm wrong. — nxx, Jan 22 '14 at 14:07

past perfect usage with before

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