A brief guide to….past perfect continuous tense

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Photo by Neven Krcmarek

Past perfect continuous (or progressive) is a tense commonly used in English to express something you started in the past, continued and ended at some time before now.

The structure of this uses HAD BEEN and the verb ending -ing.

When, since, for and before often appear alongside past perfect continuous in these sentences.

I had been eating dinner when you called.

Things had been going well before Brian showed up.

I had been studying for three hours before I fell asleep.

The project had been progressing since Radka joined the team

This form can also be used in reported speech.

Johnny is getting his hair cut in reported speech   “He had been getting his hair cut.”

Paolo is running a marathon in reported speech  “He had been running a marathon.”

Can you make a sentence using past perfect continuous? Leave a comment below.

 

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