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The Simple Guide to English Past Tenses: The Past Perfect Continuous Tense

Ki Ji O | Feb 2, 2010 |

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If you speak English, you most likely make use of the English past tense every day. And chances are, if you're not an English scholar or planning on teaching English, you don't know how to explain how each of the four tenses making up the past tense system are formed and used (or even that there are four variations!). For the average person; there is one past tense and that's all there is to know. If you want to know more (or plan on teaching English) then knowledge of each of the four minor tenses that make up the past tense is required. The four past tenses are: past simple, past continuous, past perfect and past perfect continuous.

This simple guide will tell you everything you need to know about the third of the past tenses, the past perfect continuous tense.

When is the past perfect continuous tense used?

The past perfect continuous tense is used for:

- Referring to a past event that had been taking place for a period of time leading up to a more recent past event or moment e.g.

I had been waiting for two hours when he arrived; Before starting his homework he had been playing videogames for three hours

How is the past perfect continuous tense formed?

Tenses have three variations: Affirmative, Negative and Question

Note: The auxiliary verb "have" has only one past forms: had. The present participle is the "ing" form of a verb.

-Affirmative: Subject + auxiliary verb "have"+ been + present participle

He had been expecting it to be larger; She had been watching him the entire morning

-Negative: Subject + auxiliary verb "have" + not + been + present participle

He had not been expecting it to be larger; She had not been watching him the entire morning

- Question: Auxiliary verb "have" + subject + been + present participle

Had he been expecting it to be larger?; Had she been watching him the entire time?

Keep it simple

It may seem that there is no simple way of learning the English tense system, but by taking one minor tense at a time and practicing its formation and different uses, one will find that the tense system can be learnt fairly quickly. Knowledge of parts of speech and the rules to form each tense is important in the beginning, and once these are fully remembered, practice will see the entire system becoming much easier to understand and use naturally and correctly.