Past Perfect Continuous Tense: Usage and Rules with Examples

Learn past perfect continuous tenses in English with their rules and example sentences. This lesson is going to be very helpful for you because it contains the past perfect continuous tense in English with helpful structure, usage, and example sentences. Learn and enhance your knowledge about tenses.

In this section, we are going to be looking at how the past perfect continuous tense works and what rules we must follow when using it.

Table of Contents

What is Past Perfect Continuous Tense?

We don’t utilize the past perfect continuous very often in everyday English. However, it’s a little more common in textbooks. In this extremely tight situation, one action was finished before the start of the next. However, in this instance, you can specify how long.

PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS/PROGRESSIVE EXAMPLES:

I, You, We, They, He, She, It: had been traveling for one hour when the car broke down.

The Perfect Past The perfect progressive aspect and past tense are combined in the continuous tense. It is created by joining the present participle of the main verb with the past tenses of the auxiliary verbs had, been, and be.

Past Perfect Continuous Tense Structure

Positive Form:

S + had + been + V-ing ( the present participle ) +…

Example:

They had been eating.
Sarah had been studying English for months before she finally aced the exam.
The bakery smelled heavenly because the baker had been baking fresh bread all morning.
By the time we got to the beach, the kids had been building sandcastles for hours.
When I called her, Sarah had been waiting for the bus for 20 minutes.
The dog was exhausted because he had been chasing his tail all afternoon.

Negative Form:

S + had not/ hadn’t + been +V-ing ( the present participle ) +…

Example:

They hadn’t been eating.
Sarah hadn’t been studying English for months before she finally aced the exam.
The bakery didn’t smell heavenly because the baker hadn’t been baking fresh bread all morning.
By the time we got to the beach, the kids hadn’t been building sandcastles for hours.
When I called her, Sarah hadn’t been waiting for the bus for 20 minutes.
The dog wasn’t exhausted because he hadn’t been chasing his tail all afternoon.

Question Form:

Had + S + been + V-ing ( the present participle )?

Example:

Had they been eating?
Had Sarah been studying English for months before she finally aced the exam?
Had the bakery been smelling heavenly because the baker had been baking fresh bread all morning?
Had the kids been building sandcastles for hours by the time we got to the beach?
Had Sarah been waiting for the bus for 20 minutes when I called her?
Had the dog been chasing his tail all afternoon, making him exhausted?

Example Sentences in Past Perfect Continuous Tense

I had been writing articles on various topics for three hours.
He had been reading different kinds of books since morning.
They had been playing football on that field before it started to rain.
Jane had been gossiping in the coffee shop for two hours.
Jeff had been studying in the library before he came to the class.
We had been shopping in that shop before we came home.
Had you not been enjoying the concert for three hours?
I had not been watching the cricket match on television for two hours.
Richard had been practicing singing the song since morning.
I had been helping him to do the task before I started the program.
We had been enjoying the program thoroughly for three hours.
I had been shopping with my elder brother at the fair since morning.
He’d been drinking all day.
It’d been pouring with rain.
We hadn’t been living there long.
They hadn’t been studying very hard.
John was very tired. He had been running.
I could smell cigarettes. Somebody had been smoking.
Suddenly, my car broke down. I was not surprised. It had not been running well for a long time.
Had the pilot been drinking before the crash?