" About is present Perfect Continuous Tense"

Past Perfect Continuous Tense

How do we make the Past Perfect Continuous Tense?

The structure of the past perfect continuous tense is:

subject	+	auxiliary verb HAVE	+	auxiliary verb	+	main verb
				BE
		conjugated in simple past		past participle		present
		tense				participle
		had		been		base + ing

For negative sentences in the past perfect continuous tense, we insert not after the first auxiliary verb. For question sentences, we exchange

the subject and first auxiliary verb. Look at these example sentences with the past perfect continuous tense:

	subject	auxiliary verb		auxiliary verb	main verb
+	I	had		been	working.
+	You	had		been	playing	tennis.
-	It	had	not	been	working	well.

-	We	had	not	been	expecting	her.
?	Had	you		been	drinking?
?		they				long?
	Had			been	waiting

When speaking with the past perfect continuous tense, we often contract the subject and first auxiliary verb:

I had been	I'd been
you had been	you'd been
he had she had	he'd
been it had	been she'd
been	been it'd
	been
we had been	we'd been
they had been	they'd been

How do we use the Past Perfect Continuous Tense?

The past perfect continuous tense is like the past perfect tense, but it expresses longer actions in thepast before another action in the past. For example:

•        Ram started waiting at 9am. I arrived at 11am. When I arrived, Ram had been waiting for two hours.

Ram had been waiting for two hours when I arrived.

past

present

future

Ram starts waiting in past at 9am.

9                            11

I arrive in past at 11am.

Here are some more examples:

•        John was very tired. He had been running.

•        I could smell cigarettes. Somebody had been smoking.

•        Suddenly, my car broke down. I was not surprised. It had not been running well for a long time.

•        Had the pilot been drinking before the crash?

You can sometimes think of the past perfect continuous tense like the present perfect continuous tense, but instead of the time being now the time is past.

past perfect continuous tense		present perfect continuous
		tense
had | been	| | | |	| | | |have | been
| doing		| doing
| >>>> |		| >>>> |

past                  now             future                                        past                   now              future

For example, imagine that you meet Ram at 11am. Ram says to you:

•        "I am angry. I have been waiting for two hours." Later, you tell your friends:

•        "Ram was angry. He had been waiting for two hours."