Past perfect continuous: form
We usehad+been+ the-ingform of the verb.
+ | I, she, he, it, you, we, they | (full form) had | been working. |
I, she, he, it, you, we, they | (short form) ’d | ||
− | I, she, he, it, you, we, they | (full form) had not | been working. |
I, she, he, it, you, we, they | (short form) hadn’t | ||
? + | HadI, she, he, it, you, we, they | been working? | |
? − | (full form) HadI, she, he, it, you, we, they | not | been working? |
(short form) Hadn’tI, she, he, it, you, we, they | |||
See also:
Verbs: basic forms
Regular verbs
Irregular verbs
Past perfect continuous: uses
Continuing events in the past
We use the past perfect continuous to talk about actions or events which started before a particular time in the past and were still in progress up to that time in the past:
It was so difficult to get up last Monday for school. Ihad been workingon my essays the night before and I was very tired.(The past perfect continuous focuses on the activity of working on the essays up to a particular time in the past.)
A:Why did you decide to go travelling for a year?
B:Well, I’dbeen readingan amazing book about a woman who rode a horse around South America. I was just halfway through the book when I decided I had to go travelling and that was it. I just took a year out of work and went. (The past perfect continuous focuses on the activity of reading the book at the time when she made her decision. She hadn’t finished the book when she made her decision.)
We can use the past perfect continuous to talk about events which started before a time in the past and which finished, but where the effects or results were still important at a point in the past:
Ithad been rainingand the ground was still wet.
See also:
Past perfect simple or past perfect continuous?