B2 Grammar
B2 Grammar
Past perfect continuous
Past perfect continuous
Use:
The past perfect continuous is used when telling a story about the past. It is generally used alongside other narrative tenses such as the past simple.
The past perfect continuous describes an event which was in progress for a period of time before another event in the past. We use it when we do not want to say the events in the order they happened.
Example:
A sentence with the events in the order they happened:
John was having trouble sleeping, so he went to the doctor late.
A sentence in which the events are NOT in order:
John went to the doctor because he had been having trouble sleeping.
The continuous event which happened before the other verb is in the past perfect tense.
b) Write any adverbs between had and been
They had already been waiting for half an hour.
He’d only been working there a week before he got fired.
Form:
I
you
he / she / it
we
they
had / ‘d
hadn’t
been + verb-ing