Past perfect continuous tense

  • Past perfect continuous tense structure
  • Past perfect continuous tense worksheet
  • Past perfect continuous tense examples

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    Past Perfect Continuous Tense: How to Use It, With Examples

    • The past perfect continuous tense is a verb tense used for talking about things that started at one point in the past and were ongoing up to some other point in the past. (Example: I had been living here for three years before I learned the street names).
    • The past perfect continuous is formed by placing the phrase had been before the present participle form of a verb.
    • The most common way to form a negative statement in the past perfect continuous tense is by placing the phrase hadnotbeen (or hadn’t been) before the present participle form of a verb.
    • The past perfect continuous often works closely with phrasal adverbs, which provide information about when and for how long something was happening in the past.

    Here, we’ll discuss how to use the past perfect continuous tense correctly and look at some examples.

    Table of contents

    What is the past perfect continuous tense?

    Past perfect conti

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    Past Perfect Progressive Tense in English Grammar

    What is the past perfect progressive?

    The past perfect progressive, also past perfect continuous, is the tense used to show how long an action was in progress up to a certain point in the past.

    It is similar to the present perfect progressive tense but is used to express past actions.

    We form past perfect progressive with had been + the present participle (ing-form) of the main verb.

    Learn how and when to use in the past perfect progressive in English grammar with Lingolia, then test yourself in the interactive exercises.

    When to use the past perfect progressive

    Use the past perfect progressive to express:

    • how long an action lasted up to a certain point or second action in the past, usually expressed in simple past (signal words: how long, for, since, by)
    Example:
    I had been expecting this news for a while.
    I had been working there for over five years when the news was announced.
    when + simple pa
  • past perfect continuous tense

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    PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS USE

    Download this explanation in PDF here.
    Read about how to man the past perfect here.

    1: Something that started in the past and continued up to another action or time in the past. The past perfect continuous tells us 'how long', just like the present perfect continuous, but this time the action continues up to a point in the past rather than the present. Usually we use 'for + time'. (We can also use the past perfect simple here, often with stative verbs.)

    • She had been working at that company for a year when she met James.
    • I'd been walking for hours when inom finally funnen the house.
    • We'd been living in Berlin for three months when we had to leave.
    2: Something that finished just before another event in the past. This is usually used to show a result at a time in the past. It's very similar to the present perfect continuous, but the action finishes before another time in the past, rather than finishing before the present.
    • The pavement was wet, it had