Past Perfect Continuous

Hello! Today I’m going to talk about the past perfect continuous. Now some people call it the past perfect progressive; it doesn’t matter, it’s the same verb tense, but when I was learning, I learned past perfect continuous, so that’s what I’m going to call it. We’ll start by looking at the form, which is how to make it, and then we will look at the function, which is how to use it. So, let’s get… ooh I almost forgot: at the end, I’ve got a quiz for you to see if you’ve learned what we’ve been talking about. All right, let’s get started. So, positive sentences. I, he, she, it, you, we, they, had been and then the present participle – the ing form. So this gets a little bit complicated because we’ve got to add both a “had” and a “been.” A note about this, too: depending on where you are, and depending on kind of the accent of your region, this might sound a lot more like “bin” instead of been. Now, they mean been, but they might say bin. I noticed that the people where I live say that, including me sometimes, so if I say bin, I mean been. Okay, let’s take a look. So this is pretty straightforward; positive sentences, or affirmative sentences, as some people say, which again, doesn’t make any difference; it’s the same thing, there is something we can do to change this a little bit. We can put the subject and the had together in a contraction, so instead of I had we’ve got I’d or he’d or she’d etc. okay? Okay, so now, we’re going to take a look at negative sentences. We’ll put everything back and we’ll just add a not between the had and the been. Now here again, we can use a contraction: she hadn’t been walking, you hadn’t been baking, okay? All right, so moving right along… Yes/no sentences. All we do here is we change the order of the had and the subject. Now this is the beginning of a sentence, so really this should be a capital H at this point, but it’s just you and me so you’ll forgive me, I hope. Had she been drinking water? Had you been reading a book? Okay? So yes/no questions. Now for WH questions, we leave things where they are and we just add the WH question word at the beginning of the sentence. So, why had you been singing? Who had you been seeing? Okay? All right let’s move on now to the function of the past perfect continuous. The past perfect continuous is used to tell how long something had been true at a certain time in the past. So again, how long something had been true at a certain time in the past. So let’s bring up our timeline. So there is a time in the past, and the past perfect continuous tells us what was happening before that… what happened after that, we don’t know. Let’s look at some examples. I have been watching TV – and what we’re focusing on here is this, okay? I had been watching TV for two hours when you came home. Now, did I continue watching TV after that, or was that the end? Did I do something else? We don’t know. This verb tense gives us no information on that. All we are thinking about is what had been happening, and how long it has been happening until this happened. So I had been watching TV for two hours when you came home. Okay, so we’re focusing on this, on how long something had been happening when it was interrupted. Let’s look at another example. By the time we met, I’d been living in London for a year. So by the time we met – so watch this arrow – look at that! By the time we met, I had been living in London for a year. Next example: By June the roof, had been leaking for three months. So by June, by the time June came, the roof had already been leaking for three months. The past perfect continuous is used to tell about an action in the past that had just ended at a certain time in the past, and the result of that action was probably easy to see. So look again, some examples will make this clearer for us, so we’ll look at some. So here’s my timeline and here’s something that had been happening, and this is the certain time in the past. Now remember that we’re looking back from now, okay? So the time that we’re thinking about, the time in the past that we’re thinking about, is back here. Okay, so, let’s take a look at some examples that’ll make this a little bit clearer. He was tired because he had been running, okay? So at this time, he was tired. Why? Because he had been running before that. He was tired because he had been running. Next example: We were excited because we had been planning our wedding. So, last Tuesday – we’ll say that this is last Tuesday, okay? – last Tuesday, when you saw us, we were excited. Why? Because we had been planning our wedding. One more example: They had been painting their house, so they were dirty. So, before we saw them, this is what they had been doing. They had been painting their house, and then when we saw them, they were dirty. Okay, let’s look at some sentences, and you tell me if these are correct or not. More importantly, you tell me why. So here are the sentences. Shut off the video for a moment, take a look at the sentences and then turn the video back on. Okay here are the answers. So how did you do? Let’s take a look. They had been walked for 20 minutes. Nope, that’s the wrong form they had been walking for 20 minutes. Number two: She was tired because she ran. No, she was tired because she had been running. Number three: He had been drove for less than 30 minutes when he got lost. Again, it’s a problem with the verb form: he had been driving for 30 minutes when he got lost. Number four is correct: They have been waiting since that time, since five o’clock. Number five: She was being smoking in the garage. Well, she smelled like smoke smoke. Why? Because she had been smoking in the garage up until the time she came into the house, but the effect was still there we can still smell the smoke. Number six: Your car hasn’t worked well. No, your car hasn’t been working well. You know, your car hasn’t been working well for the past two or three weeks. I think you should take it to the mechanic. Number seven: Grace were eating when I called her. No. Grace – if we’re going to use the past perfect – Grace had been eating when I called her. I could say Grace was eating when I called her, but that’s a different verb tense; that’s not what we’re looking at here. Number eight: I had been not expecting her. Well we’ve got the right parts, but we don’t have them in the right order. I had not been expecting her, so we have to move that and that and that to put them in the correct order, as it is over here. Okay, so how did you do? If you’d like some more practice, look below. I’ve prepared some more exercises and activities for you. That’s all for today. Have a good day!