Basic English Grammar Course | Present Perfect Continuous Tense | Learn and Practice

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.

In this checkup, we will talk about the present perfect continuous tense.

This tense can be used to describe an event

that started in the past and continues in the present.

Let's take a look.

The first sentence says,

‘He has _blank_ all week,’

And the verb is ‘sleep’.

For this tense, what we do is we first look at the subject, ‘he’.

For ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’, we put ‘has’.

Then, we add ‘been’. ‘has been’.

Finally we add ‘-ing’ to the end.

‘He has been sleeping all week.’

The next sentence says, ‘You haven't _blank_ for a year.’

and the verb is ‘travel’.

Now, this is the negative form.

So you see the contraction - ‘haven't’.

‘You have not’ or ‘You haven't’.

Again, what we do after that is add ‘been’.

Then, do you remember what to do?

Add ‘-ing’ to the verb.

‘You haven't been traveling for a year.’

Next, it says ‘They _blank_ working all day.’

So the verb ‘-ing’ has already been provided for you.

Now, take a look at the subject.

The subject is ‘they’.

Should we use ‘have’? or should we use ‘has’?

The correct answer is ‘have’.

Then what do you put?

Remember, we put ‘been’.

‘They have been working all day.’

Now if you want to make this negative, you can say,

‘They haven't been working all day.’

Now find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘My friends have been watch TV.’

‘My friends have been watch TV.’

What's the mistake?

Remember, we need to add ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb.

So we should say,

‘My friends have been watching TV.’

Next, ‘Sal did talking for 10 minutes.’

Hmm..

Sal is a ‘he'.

And ‘talking’ is already there for you.

So what's in the middle of those two words is the mistake.

For ‘he’, we use ‘has’.

So we say ‘has been’.

‘Sal has been talking for 10 minutes.’

And finally,

‘He has been to eat for an hour.’

Hmm..

‘He has been’ That's correct.

However, in this sentence, the base form of the verb ‘eat’ was used.

Instead, remember we need ‘-ing’.

This is the correct answer.

‘He has been eating for an hour.’

All right, good job. and let's move on to the next practice.

In this practice, we'll take a look at the present perfect continuous tense,

And see how it expresses an action that has been happening recently or lately.

Let's take a look at the first sentence.

‘She has _blank_ bad lately.’

And the verb is ‘feel’.

Remember for ‘she’, we use ‘has’.

Then don't forget we need to have ‘been’.

‘She has been’

After that, we add ‘-ing’ to the verb.

The correct sentence is,

‘She has been feeling bad lately.’

The next sentence says,

‘We haven't _blank_ much recently.’

And the verb is ‘cook’.

This is a negative sentence.

So we say, ‘We have not’ or the contraction - ‘haven't’.

‘We haven't’ Don't forget ‘been’, and then verb ‘-ing’.

‘We haven't been cooking much recently.’

Finally, we move on, let's try to find the mistake.

‘We has been riding bikes to school recently.’

What's the mistake in this sentence?

The subject here is ‘We’.

For ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’ and ‘they’, we have to say ‘have been’, not ‘has

been’.

‘We have been riding bikes to school recently.’

And for the last one,

‘Jenny lately hasn't been helping me.’

The lately is placed wrong in this sentence.

We have to say,

‘Lately, Jenny hasn't been helping me.’

or we can also say,

‘Jenny hasn't been helping me lately.’

Let's move on to the next checkup.

In this checkup, we'll talk about the present perfect continuous tense

and how it expresses an action that stopped recently

but has a present result.

The first sentence says,

‘I _blank_ . That's why I'm so sweaty.’

The verb here is ‘exercise’.

And the subject is ‘I’.

Do we use ‘has’ or ‘have’ for the subject ‘I’?

The correct answer is ‘have’.

Then, we put ‘been’ and then verb ‘-ing’.

Okay, so the correct answer is,

‘I have been exercising.

That's why I'm so sweaty.’

That's the result.

The next sentence says,

‘I'm covered in flour because I _blank_.’

And the verb is ‘bake’.

Take a look.

I have ‘I'm covered in flour because’

So this first part is the result.

I need to show the action that stopped recently in the present perfect continuous tense.

Again, the subject is ‘I’.

So we use ‘have been’.

Then, all we do is add ‘-ing’ to the end of baking.

‘I have been baking.’

So again,

‘I'm covered in flour because I have been baking.’

And we can use the contraction and say,

‘I've been baking.’

Now, find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘She has think a lot, so she has a headache.’

Take a look.

The result is that ‘she has a headache.’

So we need to use the present perfect continuous for the first part.

‘She has’ is correct.

What's missing?

Don't forget the ‘been’.

Also don't forget that we need to add ‘-ing’ to the verb.

‘She has been thinking a lot, so she has a headache.’

Look at the next sentence and find the mistake.

‘I'm so hungry because I have been diet.’

The only mistake here is that someone forgot to put the ‘-ing’ at the end of the verb,

‘diet’.

The correct answer is,

‘I'm so hungry because I have been dieting.’

Great job, everyone.

Let's move on.

We got some really good practice in today

for the 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!