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I bought a Cherry mechanical keyboard yesterday. Cherry is a German keyboard-making company. I had a chance to use a Cherry keyboard before. One of my coworkers used a Cherry keyboard, and he let me use it for some time. It felt very nicer to type on than my membrane keyboard. I hadn't understood why people buy such expensive keyboards, but after using his, I realized why people buy them.

My native English-speaking friend told me that I can't say "I hadn't understood" because it sounds like a discrete action and thus sounds very weird to him.

I used the past perfect tense to refer to a time earlier than the time when I had a chance to use his keyboard. Could you grammatically explain why it is wrong?

cdleace
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    It doesn't seem wrong to me; it seems to me to be correct and appropriate. – Jeff Zeitlin Jun 07 '21 at 14:55
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    Unrelated, but you can't say "very nicer." You can intensify a comparative adjective with "much," as in "much nicer." – Canadian Yankee Jun 07 '21 at 14:57
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    It is not wrong. I had understood [implied: before some event] why people buy x [a general statement]. – Lambie Jun 07 '21 at 16:30
  • A. It doesn't seem wrong at all. B. I have a Cherry keyboard. They are very good. It wasn't all that expensive ($30 equivalent). – Michael Harvey Jun 07 '21 at 17:41
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    As shown by this NGram *hadn't known until then* and *didn't know until then* are both in widespread use. Offhand, I can't think of a single context where those exact sequences wouldn't be fully equivalent and interchangeable. – FumbleFingers Jun 07 '21 at 17:46
  • @MichaelHarvey I thought most Cherry mechanical keyboards cost around 100 dollars. – cdleace Jun 08 '21 at 16:33
  • @FumbleFingers So, can I say "I didn't understand" instead of "I hadn't understood"? Do they mean basically the same? I feel like Americans or Canadians don't prefer using the past perfect tense. I have another question. I clicked the link and read what he said. He said, "if you do not need a past perfect you should not use it." I'm wondering in what situations I must use the past perfect tense then? Could you give me some examples? – cdleace Jun 08 '21 at 16:40
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    It seems to me that as a general principle, it's non-native speakers who prefer using the past perfect tense. Presumably because the basic definition "past within the past" seems easy to grasp, so learners are often a bit too keen to prove that they've understood it. With a sequence like *hadn't understood until, obviously that "lack of understanding" occurred before* whatever comes after the word *until* - which allows us to use the Past Perfect. But we don't have to, and as you'll see if you compare that with *didn't understand until* in NGrams, *we usually don't*. – FumbleFingers Jun 08 '21 at 16:50
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    You might want to look at Canonical Post #2: What is the perfect, and how should I use it?, to which the simplest "Answer" should probably be [One should use the Past Perfect] as little as possible**. – FumbleFingers Jun 08 '21 at 16:53
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    @FumbleFingers Thanks. So, "hadn't understood" isn't wrong, but most native English speakers prefer to say "didn't understand"? – cdleace Jun 08 '21 at 17:29
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    Yes, that's correct. – FumbleFingers Jun 08 '21 at 17:41
  • @FumbleFingers Thanks for helping me. I will read the post! – cdleace Jun 08 '21 at 17:42
  • @cdleace - my keyboard is a Cherry Stream keyboard. They use scissor-action mechanisms like laptop keyboards. It's not 'mechanical' like the more expensive Cherry MX range, but still pretty good for a lower price keyboard. – Michael Harvey Jun 08 '21 at 17:50
  • @MichaelHarvey You use a Cherry Stream keyboard. It looks nice. I will buy one if my keyboard starts malfunctioning again. – cdleace Jun 09 '21 at 08:52
  • @cdleace - my best ever keyboard was a real IBM 3270 mechanical keyboard that came with a used IBM PS/2 Model 80 machine I bought in the late 1990s but my wife made me stop using because of the noise it made. – Michael Harvey Jun 09 '21 at 10:11

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In my opinion, there's nothing actually wrong with the part which you've emphasised in bold. It's perfectly fine. However there are some other minor issues. It's rather stilted, and too repetitious. Also there's one error that sticks out: "very nicer" is incorrect.

I'd like to suggest the following improvements so that it reads more naturally:

I bought a Cherry mechanical keyboard yesterday. Cherry is a German keyboard manufacturer. I'd had the chance to use one before which had belonged to my co-worker. He'd let me use it for a while, and it felt much nicer to type on than my membrane keyboard. Until then, I hadn't understood why people would buy such expensive keyboards.

Billy Kerr
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  • Thanks for answering. I have a question. Can I say "I'd had the chance to use "the" one before which~" I feel like it should be more specific because it's not just any keyboard but his. So, I think "the" is needed. – cdleace Jun 08 '21 at 16:44
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    @cdleace No, it wouldn't be right. It would sound odd to a native speaker. "One" is a pronoun which already refers to the previously mentioned keyboard. – Billy Kerr Jun 08 '21 at 16:53
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    Is the past perfect in this sentence obligatory "I'd had the chance to use it before " because before is related to before I bought one so for me it does not sound obligatory but may be I'm wrong . ( is it the same with had belonged (may be it still belongs to his coworkers (is it a question of style for those two past perfect. – Yves Lefol Jun 08 '21 at 16:59
  • @BillyKerr but many people put the definite article before the pronoun "one." If "one" is a pronoun that already refers to something that's been previously mentioned and doesn't need the definite article, why people say something like "You're the only one." when they want to express someone is very special to them? I've dome some searching and found these: https://www.songmeaningsandfacts.com/meaning-one-dua-lipa/ https://hinative.com/ko/questions/15402979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_the_Only_One_(Sergey_Lazarev_song) – cdleace Jun 08 '21 at 17:18
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    @user5577 - I wouldn't say obligatory. That's too strong a word. In less formal speech you could omit the 'd after I, and nobody would probably care. – Billy Kerr Jun 08 '21 at 17:18
  • Is it the same for had belonged . Is it it had let me or would let me .Are they both possible ? – Yves Lefol Jun 08 '21 at 17:49
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    @user5577 yes. You could use the simple past, again less formal, but not wrong. "would let me" sounds a little too formal sometimes. The contraction 'd can mean had or would. In this example it means "he had let me". – Billy Kerr Jun 08 '21 at 18:14
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    @cdleace - you can use "the" before one in certain contexts. It doesn't work in this example however. In my suggested correction, "one" is being used in the sense of "one of those kinds of keyboards previously mentioned". It's not a specific keyboard (the actual physical keyboard), so we can't use the indefinite article before "one" in that example. – Billy Kerr Jun 08 '21 at 18:23
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    @cdleace here's another example using one without the definite article: "Cox's pippin is a delicious apple variety. I'll give you one to taste". In this example, again I don't mean a specific apple, but one of those kinds of apple. A contrary example where the definite article could be used is if you were to see your friend's keyboard again, you could say "That keyboard is the one [which] you let me use before". In this case it's the specific/actual keyboard we used before. – Billy Kerr Jun 08 '21 at 18:37
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    @cdleace - definite articles are quite a complicated topic in English. Sorry, I know this isn't an easy concept especially if your own native language doesn't use them, or uses them differently. – Billy Kerr Jun 08 '21 at 18:39
  • @BillyKerr Thanks for answering. You don't have to apologize. I'm Korean, and Korean has no such thing as the definite article, so I'm having a hard time trying to understand it. – cdleace Jun 09 '21 at 09:00
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It's not wrong. It is the correct tense for the meaning you want to express, and sounds perfectly natural to me (UK English native).

You hadn't understood, but then later, you began to understand.

Toby Speight
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  • Some people say that I can't use the past perfect tense to refer to states (in this case, "understand" can be a state when its meaning is something like I know).

    https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/hyper/index-eng.html?lang=eng&page=usetense.html It says, "The past perfect tense refers to actions that took place and were completed in the past."

    It doesn't talk anything about states but completed actions.

     – cdleace Jun 07 '21 at 16:01
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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluperfect This Wiki page says, "Pluperfect derives from the Latin plus quam perfectum, "more than perfect". The word "perfect" in this sense means "completed"; it contrasts with the "imperfect", which denotes uncompleted actions or states." – cdleace Jun 07 '21 at 16:08
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    And it's appropriate in this case. The alternative, past continuous, would be "I wasn't understanding," which sounds (to me) very non-idiomatic in this context. – Toby Speight Jun 07 '21 at 16:20
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    It's possible that the negative comes into play in that "not having done something" is a completed action. – Toby Speight Jun 07 '21 at 16:22
  • Thanks for helping me. Have a nice day. – cdleace Jun 08 '21 at 16:31