I don't understand "Plusquamperfekt"! What is it and when would I use it?

Plusquamferfekt is a verb form or tense used in German to talk about an event that has begun in the past and that has also already ended in the past. It is similar to past perfect in English! Example: Er hatte Tennis gespielt. - He had played tennis. So a "Plusquamperfekt" sentence contains two verbs which are both in past form. The first one is the "Hilfsverb" or auxiliary verb. It is usually a form of "haben" or "sein" (to have or to be). In the example sentence this would be hatte. (Ich hatte, du hattest, er hatte, ...) The second verb is the actual verb of the sentence. In this case spielen (to play). This verb is put into perfect tense, which ca be a little tricky in German. A lot of German perfect verbs (Partizp II) start with ge-, but there are exceptions, so not all perfect forms have to start with "ge-". We can talk about these verbs another time. spielen -> er spielt = gespielt You often use Plusquamperfekt to talk about an event that has happened before another event. This is why you will often find it in sentences starting with "nachdem" (after). Example: Nachdem ich aufgestanden war, habe ich meine Zähne geputzt. - After I had got up, I brushed my teeth.