THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS

Learn when to use The past perfect continuous tense (also called the past perfect progressive tense) . Here we explain clearly how to use this grammar in English with examples with British English pronunciation. We will also explain the difference between the past perfect continuous and the present perfect continuous and the past continuous. It's an essential piece of grammar that will help you improve your English communication skills.

We do not use the past perfect continuous with stative verbs. Here is a list of stative verbs.

https://www.myenglishteacher.eu/question/all-state-verbs-list/

PHOTO CREDITS
Jump for Joy by Matt Hintsa via flickr (Creative Commons)
Hitchhiking by Waqas Anees, via flickr (public domain)
Three Men Playing Cards in an Alcove by Powerhouse Museum via flickr (Public Domain)

Music homage - Squeeze "Goodbye Girl"
Intermediate and advanced English lessons on our youtube channel. Brought to you by LetThemTalk language school in Paris.

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This is an English language video brought to you by LetThemTalkTV. We are a language school in Paris. For more information go to www.letthemtalk.fr

TRANSCRIPT
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Today, we're going to look at the past perfect continuous. It's one of those grammar points that scares people. Whenever, I say the past perfect continuous in class, students, roll there eyes, play with their phones or make an excuse and go to the bathroom. But let me tell it's super easy, and once you know it will really help your speaking skills and by the end of this video you'll be using it very naturally so if you want to know more then stay tuned.
Hello and welcome to LetThemTalk my names Gideon. Today we're going to look at the past perfect continuous. It looks complicated but you'll soon see that the explanation is simple and in just a few minutes you'll know it very well. We'll start by looking at the structure. You will need the past perfect of the verb to be - that's had + been, plus verb + ing.
So when do we use it.
We use the Past Perfect Continuous to show that something started in the past and continued to another point in the past.

We use it to talk about the continuation of an action in the past. You'll often use it with "for" when you want to say for how long something happened . This grammar is related to the present perfect continuous but here the action takes place from one point in the past to another point in the past and not to the present. Let's look at some examples.

She had been waiting for him for half an hour

He had been hitchhiking for 2 hours before he got a lift.

For the negative just use had not or hadn't.
She hadn't been following the map and was completely lost.
And We often use it in reported speech too.
he told his parents he'd been doing his homework.
They said they'd been learning English at LetThemTalk


We often use the past perfect continuous to give explanations as to why things happened in the past.
For example

Her hair was wet because it had been raining
He was late because he had been walking slowly
She had blood on her hands because she had been chopping vegetables.

Now it's your turn. Look at the photo Finish the sentence with an explanation
She was exhausted because....
He couldn't sleep because
He was getting fat

Ok two things you need to be careful about. Firstly don't confuse the past perfect continuous with the past continuous. Look at these two sentences.

When I entered the bar she was drinking a cocktail.
She was drinking at a certain moment so we use the past continuous

She had been drinking cocktails all evening and was feeling a little drunk.
This emphases the duration of the drinking. The action began at an earlier time and continued. so we must use the past perfect continuous.

One final point, there are some verbs that cannot be used in any continuous tense. These are called "stative verbs" because they describe a state rather than an action. "to know", for example is a stative verb. So in a sentence you would say. "I had known him for 5 years before we moved in together" and not "I had been knowing him...." I'll leave a link in the description for a list of stative verbs.

Ok that's it so if you'd been thinking that was going to be difficult you see it was actually quite simple. Thank you for watching more English language videos coming soon.

Видео THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS канала LetThemTalkTV