Past Perfect Continuous Tense
How to use the Past Perfect Continuous | What's the structure of the Past Perfect Continuous Tense
Past Perfect Continuous Tense - When and How to use the Past Perfect Continuous Tense
We use the Past Perfect Continuous Tense
when we had been doing something in the past continuously before something else happened, when something was in progress up to a point in time in the past and the action is important
I had been walking for 10 minutes when it started to rain.
I got tired because I had been dancing for hours.
I had been dancing for hours happened earlier and then I got tired. Mr Pumpkin got fit. He had been doing lots of sports.
As we're talking about an action that had happened before another one, we use 'by the time...' and 'before...' very often in these sentences.
What is the structure?
had + been + verb + ing
In questions and negatives:
Had he been doing lots of sports?
He hadn't been working.
She looked exhausted. Had she been working all day?
Suddenly I had an idea when I hadn't even been thinking about it before.
Learn with videos, further examples, funny situations - Tenses in the English Language | Visual Learning Course
