I had been sitting at the table for 5 minutes. “ Had you been waiting long when he arrived?” The PPC can also be used to show the results of a past action. Imagine a situation where you are asking about your friend’s date: The Past Perfect Continuous Tense The past action doesnt always have to be interrupted. To make a negative sentence we add not: Subject + had not been + present participle We can make a question by: Had + subject + been + present participle To form the past perfect continuous we use: Subject + had been + present participle “When the guests arrived, the chef had been cooking for 3 hours” “Paul had been working for 6 hours when the computer broke” “Joe had been waiting for 20 minutes when Sue arrived” This means that the person started working 1 year before they decided to quit and they were still working when they made this decision. “I had been working in my job for 1 year when I decided to quit.” We use the past perfect continuous to speak about an action that started in the past and continued up to another point in the past, often to talk about the duration. Now that we know when to use the past perfect simple, let’s talk about the past perfect continuous. He didn’t visit the Tower of London (past) because he had been there before (past of the past). Sue just had a snack for dinner (past) because she had had a big lunch (past of the past). I didn’t go to the cinema with John (past) because I had already seen the movie twice (past of the past). Here are some more examples that illustrate this idea: We can think of the past perfect as ‘the past of the past’. In this reply we use the past perfect ‘had drunk’ because we are referring to a time before another past time – in this case the night before the barbeque. No, I didn’t have any beers with the barbeque because I had drunk a few beers the night before. However, maybe your friend asks you another question:ĭid you have a few beers with the barbeque? This is a typical way to respond to the question. Notice in this reply all the verbs are in the past simple tense. In the afternoon I had a small barbeque with some friends. Then I went to the supermarket and bought some food. It is important to remember that we only use the past perfect when we are thinking of a past action relative to another past action. “When I had taken a shower, you rang me.” It is important to note that we also emphasize that the action happened before the other action by using time expressions such as: before, when, after, until, by the time etc.Īs we use these time expressions, we can also start the sentence with these words: We can also use contractions so I had taken becomes I’d taken and so on. We use: had + past participle to form the past perfect In these sentences, we see that the underlined completed actions happened before something else in the past. “I had just graduated from college before I moved to Dublin” “I had finished school when I started to study English” Now think about an action that was completed before you started studying English or before you moved to Dublin. Think about when you started studying English, or when you moved to Dublin (or some other city). We use the past perfect to talk about an action that happened before another action in the past. Today we are going to put some doubts to bed and learn when to use the past perfect. I thought I'd better tell my story before other people told it for me.Talking about the past can be tricky and which tense to use can leave our heads spinning. Many people had been asking me to write an autobiography.I found out later I had been working in a factory for ten years. He had been working at the dock all afternoon. The jury had been considering its verdict for several hours when the judge effectively ordered them to find Jones guilty.She had been painting the door before the dog scratched it.Here are some more examples of the past perfect progressive tense (shaded): More Examples of the Past Perfect Progressive Tense Forming the Past Perfect Progressive Tense.More Examples of the Past Perfect Progressive Tense.
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