Quick Grammar Class: The Past Perfect Continuous
We've been looking at perfect tenses recently, and today we're going to continue this by looking at the past perfect continuous. If you're not already comfortable with the present perfect simple, the past perfect simple and the present perfect continuous, you may want to practise those before you try to understand this tense.
Form
The past perfect continuous is formed with had + been + present participle.
I had been learning... (I'd been learning)
He had been cooking... (He'd been cooking)
We had been cleaning... (We'd been cleaning)
As with the present perfect continuous, the negative is formed by placing not after had.
You had not been working... (You hadn't been working / you'd not been working)
She had not been jogging... (She hadn't been jogging / she'd not been jogging)
They had not been sleeping... (They hadn't been sleeping / they'd not been sleeping)
How Do We Use It?
We use the past perfect continuous to talk about things that continued up until a point in the past. Unlike the present perfect tense, the action doesn't continue until now; it stopped at some point in the past or was only true up until a certain point in the past. It is either used to focus on duration of an action in the past or the cause of something in the past.
I'd been learning Italian for over a year when I finally went to Rome.
You hadn't been working at the company for very long when I started.
He'd been cooking and the kitchen was a mess as a result.
She was exhausted because she'd been jogging.
By the time she arrived, we'd already been cleaning for several hours.
They'd been sleeping rough for a few months at that time. (To sleep rough = to sleep on the streets due to being homeless)
That concludes today’s lesson! As always, you can ask me to explain things you aren’t sure about or send me a few sentences to mark if you want.
