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

Hi, everybody.

I'm Esther.

In this video, I will introduce the past perfect continuous tense.

It's a great tense that helps you express an ongoing action

in the past continuing up to another point in the past.

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

One usage of the past perfect continuous tense is to talk about an ongoing action in the

past that continued up to another point in the

past.

You can use ‘for’ and a duration to talk about

how long that action was in progress.

Here are some examples.

‘I had been waiting for the bus for two hours before it arrived.’

You'll notice that at the beginning.

It doesn't matter what the subject is, we follow with ‘had been’.

For example, ‘I had been’, ‘Chuck had been’,

And ‘Tom and Kim had been.’

And then we follow with the verb ‘-ing’.

‘waiting’.

‘I had been waiting.’

Now this is the ongoing action that happened first.

Again, four and two hours shows the duration.

The second part says, ‘it arrived’.

This verb is in the past simple tense.

Therefore, that is the second action.

It's the action that this first action happened until this action happened,

so again, ‘I had been waiting for the bus,’ happened

first.

And then, it happened until the bus arrived.

‘Chuck had been cooking,’ Again, that part's easy.

No matter what’s the subject, we say ‘had been’ and then verb ‘-ing’.

Again, I can show how long Chuck had been cooking by saying ‘for an hour’, showing

the duration.

And then, I finished by saying, ‘before he finished’.

He had been cooking up to this point in the past.

Finally, ‘Tom and Kim had been walking,’ This part should be familiar to you by now,

‘for an hour’ Again, that shows duration.

‘before they rested.’

So they had been walking for an hour before they took a break.

Before they rested.

Let's move on.

The past perfect continuous tense is also used to express cause and effect in the

past.

The verb that's in the past perfect continuous tense shows the cause,

why something happened.

We can use ‘because’ or ‘so’ to show the cause and effect.

Here, I'll explain.

‘Jason was tired because he had been jogging.’

The first part of the sentence is in the past tense.

‘Jason was tired,’ However, we see ‘why?’

Well, because, ‘he had been jogging’.

The second part of this sentence is in the past perfect continuous tense.

‘he had been’, remember no matter what the subject,

we follow with ‘had been’ and jogging – ‘verb -ing’.

‘he had been jogging’ This shows why Jason was tired.

The next sentence says, ‘The pavement’ or it ‘was wet because

it had been raining.’

Similar to the first sentence, ‘it had been raining’ shows the cause.

Why was the pavement wet?

‘The pavement was wet because it had been raining.’

In this sentence, we see a little difference.

‘The children had been playing’ Again, this is the past perfect continuous

tense.

‘had been playing’ The second part says, ‘the room was a mess’.

So here, instead of ‘because’ like the first two sentences,

I used ‘so’.

So the order has been changed but the meaning is the same.

This, ‘the children had been playing’ is why the room was a mess.

This is the cause and this is the effect.

Let's move on.

Now let's go into the negative form of the past perfect continuous tense.

Here are some examples.

‘I had not been working for a day before I quit.’

So no matter what the subject ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘she’, or ‘it’,

just like in the affirmative, we say ‘had’, but after the ‘had’, in the negative form,

we add ‘not’. ‘had not’

‘had not’ or you can use the contraction ‘hadn't’.

Which is a combination of ‘had’ and ‘not’ together.

‘I had not been working’ The rest of the sentence is the same.

‘been + verb -ing’ ‘I had not been working for a day before

I quit.’

The next sentence says, ‘You had not been cutting onions for long

before you cried.’

Again, the ‘not’ goes between ‘had’ and ‘been’.

‘She hadn't been studying for long when she fell asleep.’

Here, we have the contraction.

And finally, ‘It hadn't been snowing for long when it

stopped.’

Again, we have the contraction for ‘had not’ here.

You'll notice that in the first two sentences, I used ‘before’.

And in the last two, I used ‘when’.

Either one can be used to show when the first action stopped.

Let's move on.

Now let's go into how to form basic questions in the past perfect continuous tense.

Here is the first example.

‘He had been driving all day before he arrived.’

Now, to turn this into a question, all we have to do is change the order of the first

two words.

Instead of ‘He had’, now I can say, ‘Had he’, in order to form a question.

‘Had he been driving all day before he arrived?’

The next sentence says, ‘The dog had been barking because it was

scared.’

In this case, the subject is ‘The dog’.

And then we follow with ‘had’.

To turn this into a question, again, we switch the order.

‘Had the dog been barking because it was scared?’

You'll notice that in the question, the rest of the words stay in the same place.

Now, in the first question, we're asking how long an action happened,

or how long it was ongoing in the past.

And in this question, we ask about cause and effect.

Let's move on.

Now, I'll introduce how to form WH questions in the past perfect continuous tense.

Take a look at these examples.

You'll notice that they all start with a WH word.

Why, where, what, and who.

You might also have noticed that after we have ‘had’.

‘Why had’ ‘Where had’

‘What had’ and ‘Who had’

In the first question, after that comes the subject.

‘Why had you’ And then ‘been + verb -ing’

And that's the same pattern we follow for all of these sentences.

So ‘Why had you been studying so much?’

I can answer by saying, ‘I had been studying so much because I have

a test.’

‘Where had you been traveling before you came here?’

I can say, ‘I had been traveling through Asia.’

‘What had they been playing before they played soccer?’

I can answer, ‘They had been playing baseball.’

And finally, ‘Who had she been talking to before she

left home?’

I can answer, ‘She had been talking to her boyfriend.’

Let's move on.

Let's start a checkup for the past perfect continuous tense.

Take a look at the first sentence.

It says, ‘They __ for a long time before they went home.’

Try to fill in the blank with the verb ‘work’ in this tense.

Remember, no matter what the subject, we follow the subject with ‘had been’.

So we say, ‘They had been’.

What happens to the verb?

Remember, we add ‘-ing’.

So the sentence is, ‘They had been working for a long time before they went home.’

Now, take a look at the second sentence.

I want you to use the negative.

‘I __ TV for a year before I started again.’

Remember, the negative form for this tense starts with the subject

and then ‘had not been’.

Or I can use the contraction ‘hadn't’.

‘I hadn't been’ And then again, verb ‘-ing’.

‘I hadn't been watching TV for a year before I started again.’

Now, try to find the mistake in this next sentence.

‘Gina and I hadn't been do any work before we started.’

What's the error?

You'll notice that the verb does not have an ‘-ing’.

To make the sentence correct, we must say, ‘Gina and I hadn't been doing

any work before we started.’

Now, find the mistake here.

‘He had be watching YouTube because he had some free time.’

‘He had’, that's correct, but we need to change ‘be’ to been’.

And ‘watching’ is correct.

So, ‘He had been watching YouTube because he had some free time.’

Let's move on.

Now, let's move on to another checkup of the past perfect continuous tense.

Take a look at the first example.

It says, ‘The company __ employees because they worked hard.’

Use the verb ‘promote’ in the past perfect continuous tense.

Remember, no matter what the subject, we follow with ‘had been’.

So we say, ‘The company had been’ and then verb ‘-ing’, so ‘promoting’.

‘The company had been promoting employees because they worked hard.’

The next example says, ‘I __ your emails for a while because they went to the spam

folder.’

Here, try to use the negative form with the verb ‘get’.

Remember, in the negative form, we say ‘had not been getting’

Or the contraction ‘hadn't been getting’.

‘I hadn't been getting your emails for a while because they went to the spam folder.’

Now look for the mistake in the next sentence.

‘I had been work a lot because I needed the money.’

What's the mistake?

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

‘I had been working a lot because I needed the money.’

The last sentence says, ‘He has been smoking because he was stressed.’

Can you find the mistake?

Remember, we're practicing the past perfect continuous.

In this case, we need ‘had’ after the subject, not ‘has’.

Great job, everyone.

Let's move on.

Good job learning another difficult English grammar tense.

The past perfect continuous can be tricky, but with time and practice, you will get better.

English is not always easy, but always do your best and never give up.

I'll see you in the next video.