1714_Past_Perfect_Co

1. Past Perfect Continuous Tense

2. Forms

• Affirmative: I had been working. He had been working.
• Negative: I had not been working. / I hadn’t been working. He had
not been working. / He hadn’t been working.
• Question: Had you been working? Had he been working?

3. Usage:

• We use the past perfect progressive to talk about longer
actions or situations which had continued up to the past
moment that we are thinking about, or shortly before it.
• At that time we had been living in the caravan for about
six months.
• When I found Mary, I could see that she had been crying.

4. Past Perfect vs Past Perfect Continuous

• Progressive tenses are often used to talk about more temporary
actions or situations; when we talk about longer-lasting or permanent
situations, we prefer simple tenses (though both forms are often
possible in the same situation, with a slight difference of emphasis):
• My legs were stiff because I had been standing still for a long time.
• They lived in a castle which had stood on a hill above the village for 800 years.
• Progressive forms generally emphasize the continuation of an activity;
we use simple tenses to emphasize the idea of completion:
• I had been reading science fiction, and my mind was full of strange images.
• I had read all my magazines and was beginning to get bored.