Hello guys and gals,
Well, as a guy who is learning english I have many doubts of how to build a correct sentence. Talking with my brother, who is a student of english too, I got one question obout the correct way to say a sentence in the past way. What is the correct to say:
I have read it
or
I had read it
Thanks for your help
Depends on what you want to say. If you want to say when you read the book, you would say:
I read it last year/during the last holidays/a month ago, etc.
If you want to say that you know the contents of the book and can give an opinion about it, you might say:
I have (I've) read it and I enjoyed it/I don't think it's very good, etc.
If you want to use 'I had' you might say something like this:
I started reading the book two days ago, and it was so interesting that I couldn't put it down, and suddenly I found that I had read the entire book in such a short time.
The sentence is a bit long, but it's just to show you how you could use the different things you asked about.
Like Lou says, they're both correct. "I have read it." is persent perfect and "I had read it." is past perfect.
Use present perfect for something that you have done, i.e. now it has been completed. Use past perfect for something that you had done, i.e. at the time in the past which you are talking about it had been completed.
Like in Lou's example "... suddenly I found that I had read the entire book in such a short time." the time in the past which you are talking is when he suddenly I found something and the thing that had been completed is reading the book.