Past Perfect

I was told by a native speaker that Past Perfect is not used in everyday life conversations. Is it so?

For example: "I went to Europe last year, but I had been there before". This person told me a native would prefer to say "I went to Europe last year, but I was there before". 

Of those two sentences, I prefer the first one, but I'd change "I had" to "I'd" in colloquial speech. 

I would say, grammatically, "I went to Europe last year, but I had been there before" this is the right one. However, when you don't need a perfect grammar, you can always use like "I went to Europe last year, but I was there before." They are both meaning same and this one's used more often :)

I was told by a native speaker that Past Perfect is not used in everyday life conversations. Is it so?

Honestly, from my experience with native speakers, it really depends on the speaker themself. Some use it very often and some don't, but it definitely doesn't sound weird when they do. My British and Australian friends use it all the time, the one American guy I know doesn't use it as much. That's probably the reason why I read the first sentence in a British accent and the second in an American one haha.

Kosta.Cirkovic wrote:

I was told by a native speaker that Past Perfect is not used in everyday life conversations. Is it so?
Honestly, from my experience with native speakers, it really depends on the speaker themself. Some use it very often and some don't, but it definitely doesn't sound weird when they do. My British and Australian friends use it all the time, the one American guy I know doesn't use it as much. That's probably the reason why I read the first sentence in a British accent and the second in an American one haha.

Ha ha it's good that you have lots of other friends sharing the same language but different accents and usage. You get to have a different perspective on how they use some of the sentences. As for me, I recall using both versions. Not sure how I come up with different usage though.

jpormento wrote:

Kosta.Cirkovic wrote:

I was told by a native speaker that Past Perfect is not used in everyday life conversations. Is it so?
Honestly, from my experience with native speakers, it really depends on the speaker themself. Some use it very often and some don't, but it definitely doesn't sound weird when they do. My British and Australian friends use it all the time, the one American guy I know doesn't use it as much. That's probably the reason why I read the first sentence in a British accent and the second in an American one haha.

Ha ha it's good that you have lots of other friends sharing the same language but different accents and usage. You get to have a different perspective on how they use some of the sentences. As for me, I recall using both versions. Not sure how I come up with different usage though.

Haha, yeah, that's the perks of meeting people who play the same video games in my travels. I'm sure they caught at least a bit of my Serbian accent as well. :D