Have you ever been confused by seeing or hearing "had had" in English? Don't be confused—it's very logical.

The past perfect

The past perfect in English is used to talk about something that happened before something else in the past—so, it's like a past-past—a distant past. I would use it when I want to talk about something that happened before something else in the past. For example, "I didn't eat anything at the party because I HAD GONE out to dinner before and HAD EATEN heaps of food!" (note two past perfect verbs there—"had gone" and "had eaten").

Anyway, this past perfect form is always formed by using "had" plus the past participle of the main verb you are using ("go" and "eat" in my example)—that's why we have "had gone" and "had eaten". But what's a past participle again? Well, do you remember seeing verb tables with three columns, listing verb forms like "drive, drove, driven", "eat, ate, eaten" and "go, went, gone"? Well, the forms in the last column are the participles. So, if I want to use "eat" in the past perfect, it would be "had eaten" (and, like in the example, the past perfect of "go" would be "had gone").

What about "had had"?

Now keep the logical past perfect form in your mind and imagine that "have" is actually the main verb that you want to use—you want to talk about something you had before something else. Well, you need the past participle of "have", right? Well, put "have" into those three columns and you get "have, had, had"—the past participle form of "have" is "had"! Therefore, if past perfect is always "had" plus the past participle of a verb, like in "had eaten" and "had gone", if the main verb is actually "have", of course the construction "had had" is logically possible!

When would you use it?

So when might you use such a construction? Just like in the earlier example, when you want to talk about something that happened before something else, perhaps to give the background, with a construction starting with "have". For example, to "have dinner", "have a bad morning" or "have a conversation". So, I might say things like, "I wasn't hungry when I arrived at the party, because I had had dinner", "I was feeling bad because I had had a horrible morning!" or "Before we met in person, we had had many conversations over the phone already". Notice that past perfect is always used in a sentence that has verbs in the past already, and you're talking about what HAD HAPPENED before that past event or situation.

So, go on and use "had had" with confidence!*

I hope this has helped! If you think this might help your friends, please share! This is one of the most common areas of confusion for advanced learners of English!

Thank you!

* Just two notes:
1. You might see or hear "had had" contracted—so, "He'd had" (he had had), for example.
2. This post is not intended to tell you to use this "had had" construction more often (often it is unnecessary), but just to explain the logic behind why it exists if you do hear or see it.