English Tenses: Learn Past Perfect Continuous Tense with Examples

After a brief lesson on Past Perfect, Now we will learn the Past Perfect Continuous Tense.

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Past Perfect Continuous Tense

Past Perfect Continuous Tense shows all the activities started in the Past, Remain continue for Some time and then finally ended.

There is no Big Difference between the Past Perfect & the Past perfect continuous, the Only difference is that in the Past Perfect we do not require a specific time, or duration while in the Past perfect continuous tense we require a time or duration i.e. 3 days, seven hours, thirty minutes etc.

For Example:

1. They had been working in the mining Company since 1998.
2. She had been studying in the Edinburgh's university for nine years.
3. I had been cycling since my childhood.
4. Clark had been Playing Rugby for four years.

Rules of Past Perfect Continuous Tense

In the Past Perfect continuous tense, we use the helping verb HAD BEEN and the verb first form with ING. Since or For will be placed before the Object. Since will be used for the fix known times and 'for' for the unknown time or for the time with less details.

For Examples:

She Had been dancing in the bar since 2001.

He had been learning the English tenses for eight months.

In the Above Sentences, The words since have been used before the known and fix described time while the For is used before undescribed time.

Negative Sentence:

In Negative Sentences, we put the word, not between the helping verb Had been (had + Not + been).

For Example:

1. She had not been in the Music Industry since 2009.
2. They had not been coming to the university for two months.
3. I had not been communicating with Selena for six days.
4. He had not been learning the Past perfect continuous tense since 1995.
5. We had not been laughing for two minutes after that funny joke.

Interrogative Sentence:

In the interrogative Sentences, The Helping verb had will be used as the subject while the subject instead of helping verb. The word Been will be used after helping verb.

For Example:

1. Had they Been Dancing in the Disco for nineteen minutes?
2. Had She been Learning all of her English Poems for two days?
3. Had I been Playing the Drums since morning?
4. Had they Been swimming since morning?
5. Had she been going to school since 2005?

Closing Words:

Today we Learn the Past Perfect Continuous Tense with examples.

Next Topic: In the next Topic we will discuss future tense briefly with examples. For more please visit here.