The past perfect continuous or tense or past perfect progressive tense shows that an action that started in the past continued up until another time in the past.
These are some examples of past perfect continuous sentences:
- I had been writing articles on various topics for three hours.
- He had been reading different kinds of books since morning.
- They had been playing football in that field before it started to rain.
Continue reading to learn how to make past perfect continuous sentences correctly
Table of Contents
Past Perfect Continuous: Positive Statements
The pattern to make questions with the present perfect continuous is the following:
Pronoun + had + been + verb + ing + predicate
- I had been walking
- You had been sleeping
- He had been running
- She had been working for that company
- We had been eating
- They had been talking
Present Perfect Continuous: Negative Statements
Pronoun + hadn’t + been + verb + ing + predicate
- I hadn’t been walking
- You hadn’t been sleeping
- He hadn’t been running
- She hadn’t been working for that company
- We hadn’t been eating
- They hadn’t been talking on the phone
Present Perfect Continuous: Questions
Had + pronoun + been + verb + ing + predicate + ?
- Had I been walking?
- Had you been sleeping?
- Had you been running?
- Had she been working for that company?
- Had she been eating?
- Had they been talking on the phone?
Present Perfect Continuous: Wh-Questions
Wh Question+ Had + pronoun + been + verb + ing + predicate + ?
- What had you been doing when you cut your finger?
- Which fax had you been trying to send when the power went off?
- How long had he been waiting?
- How long had you been waiting to get on the bus?
- How long had you been studying French before you moved to Paris?
- Had you been waiting there for more than two hours
Past Perfect Continuous Examples
These are some past perfect continuous examples
- He had been practising the piano for hours when I arrived.
- We had been trying to open the door for five minutes when Erik found her key
- Her friends had been thinking of calling the police when she walked in.
- I had been studying at university for 6 months before I met her
- I put on weight because I had been eating too much
- We had been waiting for a long time when the bus finally came
- I’d been cleaning all day, so I was too tired to go out last night
- They had been talking for over an hour before Tony arrived.
Past Perfect Continuous Tense Video
This is a great video to understand past perfect continuous tense video
