Present Perfect Continuous - Basic English Grammar Lesson

I’ve been trying to film this video  all day but it keeps going wrong! 

What does that mean? Does it  mean have you been trying to film  

but you’ve given up? Does it mean  that I’ve now finished filming?

Today we’re talking about the present perfect  continuous tense, which we use to talk about  

an activity that is ongoing. But how does it work?

The present perfect continuous tense  is created using 4 words in the correct  

order at the beginning of a sentence. I have been playing the piano all morning. 

First of all, we have the  subject, so in this case: “I”. 

Then, we use “have” or “has”  depending on the subject. 

Next, is the word “been”.  This is the part that shows  

the activity is ongoing and it doesn’t change  no matter what the subject or the verb is. 

And finally, we have the main  verb, with an “ing” ending. 

“I have been playing” And then you can finish off  

the sentence, including details of the activity  and how long it has been going on for, usually  

by adding the subject and then a time phrase. “I have been playing the piano all morning.”

Here's a pro tip: if you want to sound more like a  native speaker, you can get a little bit lazy.  

We’ll often use a contraction of the subject and  “has/have”, which means we shorten it to one word.  

I have becomes “I’ve”. You have  becomes “you’ve”. They have becomes  

“they’ve”. He has becomes “he’s”. She has  becomes “she’s”. Anna has becomes “Anna’s”. 

Anna’s been teaching English all morning.

Now let’s talk about those time phrases.  What’s the difference between the word “for”  

and the word “since”? This is a very  common mistake with non-native English  

speakers so let’s go through it carefully. The word “for” is used when you are talking about  

an amount of time. For example, “She  practiced the dance for 2 hours” or  

“I’ve been at the bus stop for half an hour”. The word “since” is used when you want to say the  

start time. For example, “I’ve been here since  6 o’clock” or “I’ve lived in this house since  

2011”. If you want to be less specific, you could  say “for a while”. “I’ve been thinking about it  

for a while”. This usually means for quite a  long time, but not a specific amount of time.  

If you want to say that you have not been doing  something for a long time, without being too specific,  

you could say “for a little while”. Person 1: Sorry I’m late!  

Have you been waiting long? Person 2: Only a little while.

Another time phrase you can use is “all” and  then a longer time period. For example, “I’ve  

been here all week” or “I’ve been trying to call you all month”. Again, this comes from native  

speakers being lazy. It means “for all of the”, so  rather than saying “I’ve been trying to find you  

for all of the day”, a native speaker would  simply say “I’ve been trying to find you all day”.

So now I’m going to say 5 sentences, leaving  a space for the word “for” or “since”.  

I’ll pause for a few seconds between each one to let you think about your answer.

Ok, are we ready? Number one

“I’ve been playing tennis ____ last year.” 

The answer is since. I’ve been  playing tennis since last year. 

“He’s been talking about it ___ weeks!” The answer is “for”. He’s been  

talking about it for weeks.

Next question, number three “They’ve been driving ____ hours.”

The answer is “for”. They’ve  been driving for hours. 

“I’ve been dancing _____ I was 6 years old.” 

The answer is “since”. I’ve been  dancing since I was 6 years old. 

And the final question...

“She’s been annoying me ____ all morning.”

I'm sorry. That was a trick question! We don’t use ‘for’ or ‘since’ when we say “all morning”, so the full  sentence is: She’s been annoying me all morning!

What was your score out of 5?  Let me know in the comments section below

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