Learn Present Perfect Continuous Tense | English Grammar Course

Hi, everyone.

Welcome to the video.

In this video, I’ll introduce the Present Perfect Continuous English Tense.

This tense can be used to talk about an action

that started in the past and continues in the present.

It can also be used to talk about an action that hasn't happened recently.

And finally, it can also be used to talk about an action that recently stopped.

There's a lot to learn, so keep watching.

You can use the present perfect continuous tense

to talk about an action that started in the past and continues in the present.

We want to emphasize duration

and you can do that by using ‘for’ or ‘since’ in your sentence.

Let's take a look at some examples.

‘Charles has been studying English for an hour.’

Take a look at the subject, ‘Charles’.

The subject pronoun for Charles is ‘he’.

And that's why we say ‘has’.

After that, we add ‘been’ and then verb ‘-ing’.

In this case, ‘studying.’

You'll also notice that at the end of the sentence we have for an hour.

That shows how long this action has been happening.

When you use ‘for’, you emphasize the duration. ‘for an hour’.

‘Charles has been studying English for an hour.’

Let's take a look at the next sentence.

‘Lily has been playing the piano for 2 years.’

In this case, Lily is a ‘she’ and that's why, again, we say ‘has’.

You'll notice again, we have ‘been’ and then verb ‘-ing’.

In this case, ‘playing’.

At the end of this sentence, we also used ‘for’.

and then ‘two years’.

So again, we're showing how long this has been happening.

The next sentence is a little different.

‘It has been growing since June.’

So it can be something like a plant.

The plant or it has been growing since June.

Here we use ‘since’, not ‘for’.

What's the difference?

We use a specific point in time with since.

We don't say ‘Since two hours’.

No, we say ‘When the action started since June.’

And finally, ‘Dan and I have been working since 6 a.m.’

The subject pronoun for ‘Dan and I’ is ‘We’.

Therefore we use ‘have’.

At the end of the sentence, we have ‘since 6 a.m.’

Remember that with ‘since’, we talked about a specific point in time when the action started.

Let's move on.

The present perfect continuous can also be used without emphasizing duration.

In this case, we mean ‘lately’.

This action has been happening ‘lately’,

and so we can use the word ‘lately’ or ‘recently’ to explain this.

Let's take a look at some examples.

‘You have been missing many classes lately.’

You'll notice that at the end of the sentence I use the word ‘lately'

to describe when this action has been happening.

You can also use lately at the beginning of the sentence.

For example, ‘Lately, you have been missing many classes.’

The next example says, ‘Recently, Toby has been running every day.’

In this sentence, we used ‘recently’ at the beginning

to show when does action has been happening.

You can also use ‘recently’ at the end of the sentence.

‘Toby has been running everyday recently.’

In this example, the subject is Toby and so we use ‘has’ after Toby.

Because Toby is a ‘he’.

The next example says, ‘Lately, Dana has been swimming a lot.’

Again, we use ‘lately’ at the beginning of this sentence,

but you can also use it at the end.

Dana is a ‘she’ and so we followed this subject with ‘has’.

And finally, ‘We've been practicing English together recently.’

‘We’ is the subject of this sentence and so we use ‘have’.

Here, we use the contraction ‘We’ve’.

‘We have’ become ‘We've’.

‘We've been practicing English together recently.’

We can put ‘recently’ at the end,

or we can say ‘Recently we've been practicing English together.’

Let's move on.

The present perfect continuous tense and also be used to talk about an action that recently

stopped and has a present result.

Let's take a look at the example.

‘I'm tired because I have been running.’

The second part of the sentence, ‘I have been running’

is using the present perfect continuous tense.

This is the action that recently stopped.

And as a result, ‘I'm tired’.

This is the present result.

What's happening now, because of this.

‘I'm tired.’.

The next example says, ‘The street is wet because it has been raining.’

This is very similar to the first sentence.

Here, we know that it has been raining.

And this action recently stopped.

As a result, in the present, The street is wet.

The street is wet right now because of this action.

The next example says, ‘You don't understand because you haven't been listening.’

You'll notice here that we use the negative.

Here's the contractions, ‘haven't’ or ‘have not’

because of this action, you haven't been listening,

now you don't understand.

In the last example, we switch the order a little bit.

‘I've been studying all night.’

There is the present perfect continuous tense.

This is the action that stopped recently.

And here is the result.

‘Now, I'm exhausted.’

Great job, everyone.

Let's move on.

Let's take a look at the negative form of the present perfect continuous tense.

Here are some examples.

‘I have not been feeling well these days.’

At the end of the sentence we have ‘these days’ to show that this is an action that's

been happening recently.

In the negative form, we have to have ‘not’.

The ‘not’ goes after have or has.

In this case, the subject is ‘I’, so I use ‘have’.

‘I have not been feeling well these days.’

We can also use a contraction ‘haven't’ or ‘have not’.

‘I haven't been feeling well these days.’

The next sentence says, ‘Sue has not been cooking lately.’

We have ‘lately’ at the end of this sentence,

We can also put ‘lately’ at the beginning of the sentence.

The important part of this sentence is to put ‘not’ after ‘has’.

Why did we use ‘has’?

Because the subject is ‘Sue’ which is a 'she'.

For ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, we use ‘has’.

Again, we can use a contraction ‘hasn't’ for has not.

‘Sue hasn't been cooking lately.’

The next sentence says, ‘Jeff hasn't been eating healthy food recently.’

Again, the ‘recently’ can be used at the beginning or end of this sentence.

We have the contestant ‘hasn't’ here for you.

‘hasn't’ is a contraction for ‘has not’.

We have ‘has’ because the subject is Jeff which is ‘he’.

And finally, ‘They haven't been speaking for over a year.’

In this case, ‘for over a year’ shows duration.

Remember with ‘for’, you show how long something has been happening.

In this case, we have a contraction ‘haven't’ or ‘have not’.

Great job, everybody.

let's move on.

Now, let's take a look at how to form the ‘have’ or ‘has’ question

for the present perfect continuous tense.

The first sentence says, ‘He has been reading for an hour,’

Now, to turn this into a question,

all we have to do is change the order of the first two words.

So ‘He has’ becomes ‘Has he’.

‘Has he been reading for an hour?’

You'll notice that the second part of the sentence doesn't change.

‘Has he been reading for an hour?’

To answer, you can simply say, ‘Yes, he has.’ or ‘No, he hasn't.’

The next sentence says, ‘They have been sleeping since 8 p.m.’

Again, the second part of the sentence stays the same,

and in the beginning, we just switch the first two words.

‘They have’ become ‘Have they’.

‘Have they been sleeping since 8 p.m.?’

To answer, you can say, ‘Yes, they have.’

or ‘No. they haven't.’

Great job, everybody.

Let's move on.

Now, let's take a look at how to form WH questions in the present perfect continuous tense.

Here, we have some WH question words.

‘what’, ‘where’, ‘why’ and ‘how’.

Let's take a look at the first question.

‘What have you been doing lately?’

I can answer by saying, ‘I have been working.’

or ‘I have been studying.’

I can also use the contraction ‘I've’.

‘I've been working.’

‘I've been studying.’

The next question says, ‘Where have you been traveling?’

‘I have been traveling in Europe.’

or ‘I've been traveling in Europe.’

‘Why has he been feeling sad?’

You can answer by saying, ‘He's been feeling sad.’

That's the contraction ‘he has’, he's been feeling sad because his pet died.

or ‘He has been feeling sad because he broke up with his girlfriend.’

Something like that.

And ‘How has she been doing?’

‘How has she been doing?’

I can say, ‘She's been doing well.’

‘She's’ is a contraction for ‘she has’.

Great job, everyone.

let's move on.

We got some really good practice in today with a present perfect continuous English tense.

I know there was a lot to learn, but you did a wonderful job.

Studying English can be difficult,

but with practice, I promise you'll get better and better.

Keep watching my other videos and I'll see you in the next one.

Bye.