how to distinguish tenses in English? for example, how to distinguish "Past Simple" and "Past Pefect" from each other. I do not understand the difference between them and I make mistakes in constructing sentences

Question

Fodagus · Answer

To be honest, a lot of Native speakers struggle with this too! If you can master past, present, and future, you'll be ahead of a lot of people.

For the more advanced tenses, it really comes down to understanding why they exist, what they tell us, and then practice and exposure.

The difference between Past Simple and perfect is the order of events. They could be the same:

"She packed her bag before she took the train."
"She had packed her bag before she took the train."

In both cases, the woman packs her bag, then takes a train.

What the Past Perfect sentence, "She had packed her bag" adds is a distinction that she did that action first. It shows the relation that she packed her bags BEFORE taking the train. You would typically only use this if it is important to highlight that this was done first. In this case, you could be pointing out that she is diligent.

Where I see if used more is when talking about something that has happened, but doesn't anymore:
"I studied Karate."
"I had studied Karate."

This is making a distincition that while I studied Karate, I don't anymore.

Where it really shines is here:
"I expected a good experience"
"I had expected a good experience"

Both cases are in the past and are about expecting a good experience. By using Past Perfect to say "I had expected", that means that at some point we stopped expecting, or this expectation was wrong. There strongly hints that while we had expected something, we were wrong. The first form, "I expected" just shows that there was an expectation, but the second, "I had expected", strongly suggests the expectation stopped and we ended up disappointed.

Fodagus · Answer

@dldvpzaaa Like I said, it's tricky even for native speakers.

Uh, one way to look at it is that it's kind of like double past? Take the Train example:

"She had packed her bag before she took the train"

"She took the train" is in the past, so if we go backwards in time to right before she takes the train, then the act of packing her bag is still in the past. It's there to show the relationship between the two events.

If we use the negated form, maybe that helps:
"She had not packed her bag before she took the train."

Before taking the train, she had not packed her bag. It gives you more detail about how the event occurred or what the relationship between them is.

Fodagus · Answer

Yes and no. I'm not a language expert so this is my opinion, but English can be very forgiving about errors. I don't know if this is because of how the language is, or because so many people speak it as a second language, so English speakers are used to errors.

"I had returned to the hotel only late at night as I losed my way in the fog" is clearly incorrect, but I also can completely understand you. There's not really any confusion about what you are saying, it just sounds funny.

I think it should be:
"I returned to the hotel late at night as I had lost my way in the fog."

Why? Think of the order of events:
you lost your way in the fog
then you return to the hotel.

Losing your way in the fog happened before returning to the hotel, so it will be past perfect, while returning is past simple.

The past tense of lose is lost, not losed. There is not really a rule for why, you just have to memorize it. It's annoying, even for us (and yes, Native speakers fail at this. Usually not on easy ones like lose/lost, but it still happens). This is again largely because "it sounds funny", everyone will known what you mean if you say "losed."

For the most part, we do follow tenses. I think some people just don't always use the complicated tenses. It varies with region and education level.

Is it important? That depends on what your goal is. You can clearly communicate with me here and we're talking about grammar of all things! That's quite an accomplishment. I don't know that you NEED to master all the tenses if your goal is communication. You can always just use more words:
"She had already packed her bag before she took the train." 
"She packed her bag and then she took the train."

These say the same thing, and the second one only uses Past Simple, It's just less compact and it sounds "simpler." That is commonly how a child around the age of 10 or 13 would write and speak.

As to the second part, the "whacha doin?". That's called a dialect. Dialects and slang are modifications to the language for style and preference reasons. Slang is often grammatically incorrect, but the speaker likes how it sounds. "What are you doing" -> "Whatcha doin'" is called a contraction: you're making the words shorter so it's easier to say. This is similar to how "I am" can turn into "I'm", "is not" -> "isn't", "cannot" -> "can't". It's faster and easier to say, so people do. The part of the US i'm from, The Upper Midwest, is notorious for this. We say a lot of "gunna, coulda, woulda, shoulda, doncha, whatcha". People reverse the tense on some words too: "I seen you" vs "I saw you". It's not correct, it's just what people say. I wouldn't worry about slang and dialects just yet. You'll run into Slang and Dialects if you watch American media and listen to Music, but that's why forums like HiNativ are.

As to study, I'd say what you're doing? If you have a text book or teacher, it should have exercises. If not, You could think about finding one, otherwise just practice and immersion. The key to any learning really is spend time with your mistakes, like you're doing. Don't just learn to correct the mistakes, but give thought and time to WHY they are wrong and spend time with it. Beyond that, it's just practice, practice, practice.

how to distinguish tenses in English? for example, how to distinguish "Past Simple" and "Past Pefect" from each other. I do not understand the difference between them and I make mistakes in constructing sentences See a translation

how to distinguish tenses in English? for example, how to distinguish "Past Simple" and "Past Pefect" from each other. I do not understand the difference between them and I make mistakes in constructing sentences