The Past Perfect Continuous/Past Perfect Progressive is formed this way:

subject + had been + -ing.

The conjugation is fairly simple because only the subject changes. However,
there are more parts for the ESL student to keep in order.

Here are some examples with I, you, he/she/it, they and we.

1. I had been talking. I had been walking. I had been dancing. I had been
eating.

2. You had been talking. You had been walking. You had been dancing. You
had been eating.

3. She/He/It had been talking. She/He/It had been walking. She/He/It had
been dancing. She/He/It had been eating.

4. They had been talking. They had been walking. They had been dancing.
They had been eating.

5. We had been talking. We had been walking. We had been dancing. We

had been eating.

Past Perfect Continuous Forms (five forms the ESL student must learn)

1. Affirmative Usage (e.g., She had been studying English grammar for a
year before she started speaking English.)

2. Negative Usage (e.g., She had not been sleeping for more than a few
minutes before the baby woke her up.)

3. Yes/No Questions (e.g., Had she been playing tennis for a while?)

4. Short Answers (e.g., Yes, she had been. No, she hadn't been. Or, Yes, she
had. No, she hadn't.)

5. WH- Questions (e.g., When had she been studying the Past Perfect
Progressive?)

Past Perfect Continuous Tense Function

The Past Perfect Continuous has two main functions.

(1) To emphasize the duration of an activity that was in progress

before another activity or time in the past.
 For example, I had been waiting for them for thirty minutes
before they finally showed up.
(2) To express an activity that was in progress close in time to another
activity or time in the past.
For example, She was all wet because she had been jogging in
the rain.

ESL Student Challenges

ESL and EFL students often have trouble with this verb tense because it is
usually one of the last tenses taught to students, so they often don't get
enough practice with the tense.The other problem is that it takes a while to
get used to the long construction of the verb tense ("subject + had been +
present participle").

As with most English grammar verb tenses, practice and drills will help to
reinforce the structure of the Past Perfect Continuous tense.

The past perfect continuous tense is used to talk about longer situations that continued up to the
moment in the past we are talking about.

Past Perfect Continuous Timeline

For example:

"By the time I left England we had been living in Bristol for five years."

"Her back was sore because she had been sitting at the computer all day."

It is also used to say how long something went on for, up to a time in the past.

For example:-

We apologised because we had kept them waiting for 3 hours.

We apologised because we had kept them waiting since lunchtime.

!Note It is always for a length of time and since a point in time.

Functions and examples

We use the past perfect continuous to talk about longer actions or events that
happened before or up to another action or event in the past.

He was tired because he had been playing football all day.

They had been driving for three hours when the accident happened.
When saw her I could see that she had been crying.

Important points

1. When the action or event is more temporary, we often use the past perfect
continuous, and when it is more permanent, we often use the past perfect simple.

We found the house where my grandparents had lived. -- Past perfect simple
We found a house where another family had been living for a few months. -- Past
perfect continuous

2. Some verbs are not normally used in the past perfect continuous tense. These
verbs include: believe, belong, depend, hate, know, like, love, mean, need, prefer,
realise, suppose, want, understand.

I had known him for ten years when he got married.

I had been knowing him for ten years when he got married. x
I had belonged to the tennis club for 25 years when I left.
I had been belonging to the tennis club for 25 years when I left. x

Past perfect continuous

We use the past perfect continuous to look back at a situation in progress.

• It was a good time to invest. Inflation had been falling for several months.
• Before I changed jobs, I had been working on a plan to reduce production costs.
• We had been thinking about buying a new house but then we decided to stay here.

We use it to say what had been happening before something else happened.

• It had been snowing for a while before we left.

• We had been playing tennis for only a few minutes when it started raining.
• He was out of breath when he arrived because he had been running.

We use it when reporting things said in the past.

• She said she had been trying to call me all day.

• They said they had been shopping.
• I told you I had been looking for some new clothes.

The past perfect continuous

a. Use
The Past Perfect Continuous tense is used to refer to a continuous, ongoing action in the past
which was already completed by the time another action in the past took place. In the following
examples, the verbs in the Past Perfect Continuous tense are underlined.
e.g. I had been waiting for two months by the time I received the reply.
He had been thinking about his friends shortly before they called.

In the preceding examples, the verbs had been waiting and had been thinking are in the Past
Perfect Continuous tense, and the verbs received and called are in the Simple Past. The use of
the Past Perfect Continuous tense indicates that the actions of waiting and thinking were
continuous, and were completed by the time the actions expressed by the verbs in the Simple
Past took place.

b. Formation
The Past Perfect Continuous tense is formed from the Past Perfect of the auxiliary to be,
followed by the present participle of the verb. For example, the Past Perfect Continuous tense of
the verb to work is conjugated as follows:

I had been working

you had been working
he had been working
she had been working
it had been working
we had been working
they had been working
The auxiliary had is often contracted to 'd in spoken English.

Exercise .

Using the Past Perfect Continuous tense, fill in the blanks with the correct forms of the verbs
shown in brackets. For example:
We __________________ for an apartment. (to search)
We had been searching for an apartment.

She _______________ extra courses. (to take)

She had been taking extra courses.

1. We ____________________ the grass. (to cut)

2. You ______________________ at the photographs. (to look)
3. They _____________________ you the letters. (to give)
4. He _____________________ for us. (to wait)
5. She _____________________ a business. (to run)
6. It ______________________ all night. (to rain)
7. We ______________________ them. (to encourage)
8. You ___________________ on the beach. (to lie)
9. They ______________________ the sauce. (to taste)
10. He ____________________ behind. (to lag)

Answers

1. had been cutting 2. had been looking 3. had been giving 4. had been waiting 5. had been
running 6. had been raining 7. had been encouraging 8. had been lying 9. had been tasting 10.
had been lagging

c. Questions and negative statements

As is the case with other English tenses, questions and negative statements in the Past Perfect
Continuous tense are formed using the first auxiliary.

Questions are formed by placing the first auxiliary before the subject. For example:

Affirmative Statement Question

I had been working. Had I been working?
They had been working. Had they been working?

Negative statements are formed by placing the word not after the first auxiliary. For example:

Affirmative Statement Negative Statement

I had been working. I had not been working.
They had been working. They had not been working.

Negative questions are formed by placing the first auxiliary before the subject, and the word not
after the subject. However, when contractions are used, the contracted form of not follows
immediately after the first auxiliary. For example:
Without Contractions With Contractions
Had I not been working? Hadn't I been working?
Had they not been working? Hadn't they been working?

Tag questions are formed using the first auxiliary. In the following examples, the negative tag
questions are underlined. Contractions are usually used in negative tag questions.

Affirmative Statement Affirmative Statement with Tag Question

I had been working. I had been working, hadn't I?
They had been working. They had been working, hadn't they?

Exerces 8

Rewrite the following affirmative statements as questions, negative statements, negative

questions without contractions, negative questions with contractions, and affirmative statements
followed by negative tag questions. For example:
She had been keeping a diary.
Had she been keeping a diary?
She had not been keeping a diary.
Had she not been keeping a diary?
Hadn't she been keeping a diary?
She had been keeping a diary, hadn't she?

1. We had been raking the leaves.

2. You had been visiting your cousins.
3. They had been swimming in the lake.
Answers

1. Had we been raking the leaves? We had not been raking the leaves. Had we not been raking
the leaves? Hadn't we been raking the leaves? We had been raking the leaves, hadn't we?
2. Had you been visiting your cousins? You had not been visiting your cousins. Had you not
been visiting your cousins? Hadn't you been visiting your cousins? You had been visiting your
cousins, hadn't you?
3. Had they been swimming in the lake? They had not been swimming in the lake. Had they not
been swimming in the lake? Hadn't they been swimming in the lake? They had been swimming
in the lake, hadn't they?