Sentence: He had called and I said I was working on that

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

The context is:
I am working with a file. At that time, Person-A called me and asked about the file.
After that,after 30 Minutes, Person-B asked me what happend.
My reply was -“Person-A had called and I said I was working on that- is this correct”.
Here, WAS WORKING- correct?

Whenever we tell about the past things, all presentence should be converted into Past tense? Like "is working "—> “was working”.

Second thing, whenever we use “thought” - the remaining things should be changed into Past.
Ex: At 3.00 am, Person-A is on the way. Someone asked me about Person-A.
I said - “Person-A is on the way”.
After 30 minutes (3.30 am), Person-B asked me about Person-A. At this point also, Person-A HAS NOT COME.
My reply (at 3.30 am)- “I thought Person-A was on the way”. Is this correct - Because Person-A is STILL on his way. This actions has not finished yet.

2

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These are correct:

First thing: Person A called and I said I was working on that。

Second thing: I thought Person A was on the way
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3

My confusion is with using “Had”.

Since there are two things happened, Called + My reply - Should not I use HAD CALLED instead of “Person A called and I said I was working on that”.
This is where I confuse.
My Question: If ONE SINGLE person did do things, then only should I use Had+Past tense.

4

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No-- use past perfect sparingly. Use it only when ( 1 ) the sequence of the two past events is unclear or ( 2 ) when you wish to or need to stress the chronology of events.
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5

It’s got nothing to do with how many persons have done the things.

Past Perfect is used when we have two or more actions that took place in a sequence.

Classic example: The train had left when we arrived at the station.

Action 1: The train left the station
Action 2: We arrived at the station.

Here, Action 1 took place first followed by Action 2. So we have two incidents that took place in the past, one after another.

We use had+pp for the action that took place first, which in our case is Action 1. We use simple past for the one that happened later, which in our case is Action 2.

A few more examples:

Suresh had done his homework when his father came home.
I hadn’t thought of it until you told me.

Also, the following sentence you used in your post is wrong

It should be “Two things happened”

It was happened ~ Wrong
It happened ~ Right

Also, use “Should I not use” instead of “Should not I use”

6

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Good general explanation, daemon, but please note that it is only because we must stress that the train left first, so we missed it. The other sentence is also possible-- The train left when we arrived at the station– but here the events occur at the same time, and we caught our train.
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7

Sorry Mister Micawber and Suresh, I forgot to mention that we could use that sentence when somebody asked us why we missed the train :slight_smile:

And as you said, The train left when we arrived at the station is very much possible.

8

Mister Micawber and Daemon99 - Thank you very much for your comprehensive example and your time effort.

So, I am assuming, even without using Had+pastparticiple, I can talk english without any errors/ambiguity.

Thank you very much! …is this correct :slight_smile:

9

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On the contrary, the past perfect still has its uses-- particularly in moments of ambiguity.
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