Past Perfect Continuous

FORM

Positive: Subject + had + been + verb-ing
Negative: Subject + had not + been + verb-ing
Question: Had + subject + been + verb-ing?



USAGE

Past perfect continuous is used to talk about:

A) past action that had continued to a certain point in the past and was still happening at that time (or duration of a past action up to a certain point in the past); for examples,

 •  I had been running for an hour when it started raining.
 •  When I saw him I knew that he had been training.
 •  For how many hours had Thona been painting the house when the ladder fell?
 •  How long had the player been playing before he scored?


B) Action that had just stopped or finished before a past action; for examples,

 •  Before the budget cuts, the students had been participating in many extracurricular activities.
 •  His hands were dirty because he had been fixing the car.
 •  At that time your father was very tired. What had he been doing?