Learn English – “because I’d been working late” vs. “because I worked late”

past-perfectpast-vs-past-perfect

I was really tired because I had been working late the night before.

I want to show cause and effect. If I say instead

I was really tired because I worked late the night before.

does that change the meaning or feel in any way?

Best Answer

Your first example is grammatically incorrect. "Had been" is the past perfect continuous form. It describes something that happened in the past from the perspective of it having not yet finished. You cannot use this form at all because getting tired was a consequence of the entire action (working late) rather than something that occured during that past action. To use the past perfect continuous form you would need to create a definitive reference that caused the condition because the continuous action, uncompleted, could not have yet caused the condition.

I was really tired because I had been working late and had to move twenty bags of chicken feed.

Your second example is also grammatically incorrect. It should be written with the past perfect simple form to describe a condition in the past that occured as a result of something that was completed in the past.

I'm assuming that the first part of your sentence is intentional; that you're discussing something that occured in the past (being tired) that was caused by something even more distant in the past (working).

I was really tired because I had worked late the night before.

If, on the other hand, you are trying to describe a current condition caused by a past event, you need to use the past simple form.

I am really tired because I worked late last night.

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