I had saved my document before the computer crashed.

[lagoo]

Hi, I came across the sentence below:

“I had saved my document before the computer crashed.”

If I change the sentence above into “I saved my document before the computer crashed”, would the original meaning be changed consequently?

Either “saved” or “had saved” happened before the computer crashed.

Your explanation would be appreciated.

 

[Skrej]

No, in this case there's no difference in meaning or sequence of events. We already have that conjunction of 'before' to establish the sequence of events, so even with the simple past, the order of events is still clear.

 

[Tdol]

When the sequence is clear, we often use the simple past rather than the past perfect.