Why "gesehen hatte" instead of "gesehen habe"

Question

One sentence in the text was corrected for me. The corrected sentence looks like this:

Der war deutlich größer als die, die ich in anderen großen Städten gesehen hatte.

I was confused by “gesehen hatte” instead of “gesehen habe”, which is exactly how I wrote it. Although the offer is neither Präteritum nor Plusquamperfekt

??? "gesehen hatte" is Plusquamperfekt. I must admit that in everyday language, we would rather use "gesehen habe" here. It is pretty clear from the context, that the "sehen" happened earlier than the timeline of the "war", and pluperfect is a bit of an overkill here, even though its use is theoretically justified. — user1934428, Jan 02 '24 at 13:45

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 01 '24 at 00:35

Der war deutlich größer als die, die ich in anderen großen Städten gesehen hatte.

The main clause features war, which is a Präteritum form of sein. So this sentence tells a story. That's why anything that plays before the current event in that story is put in Plusquamperfekt.

The alternative pair is Präsens/Perfekt. That one marks non-past and past in real life:

Der ist deutlich größer als die, die ich in anderen großen Städten gesehen habe.

Why "gesehen hatte" instead of "gesehen habe"

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