The past perfect continuous

  • B2 · Upper-intermediate
  • Grammar lesson
  • 60 min

The past perfect continuous (they had been trying to get a record deal for three years) against the past perfect (they had sent their albums to more than fifty labels) and the past continuous: how long, how many, and what was happening at that moment. From a band that almost made it to the story of your life so far.

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had been rainingforby the time

What's in the lesson

  1. 1Warm-up
  2. 2Reading: the band that almost made itReading comprehension
  3. 3What does it show?Grammar exercise
  4. 4Activity or finished action?Grammar exercise
  5. 5Three past tensesGrammar rule
  6. 6Choose the right tenseGrammar exercise
  7. 7The proposalGrammar exercise
  8. 8Questions for your teacherGrammar exercise
  9. 9Say it naturallySpeaking practice
  10. 10My life so farSpeaking practice
  11. 11About youGrammar exercise
  12. 12Wrap-up

Homework

  1. 1Homework: meeting my online friendGrammar exercise
  2. 2Homework: which tense?Grammar exercise
  3. 3Homework: the end of somethingDiscussion

Two slides from the lesson

Warm-up

A few questions about you before we start.

  1. Have you ever been part of a team, a club or a band? How did it end?
  2. What is something you had wanted for a long time before you finally got it?
  3. Why do you think so many bands break up?

Grammar rule

Three past tenses

TenseFormUseExample
past perfect continuoushad been + -ingan activity that went on for some time up to a past moment, or signs of itThe roads were wet because it had been raining all night.
past perfecthad + past participlesomething finished (or counted) before a past momentBy noon, she had answered forty emails.
past continuouswas / were + -ingsomething in progress at that momentWhen the phone rang, I was cooking.

Time words

Often with the continuous: for, since, how long, all day: How long had you been standing in line when the doors opened? · With both: by the time, when, before: By the time I arrived, the meeting had ended.

Was waiting or had been waiting?

When the bus came, I was waiting at the stop. (in progress at that moment) · When the bus came, I had been waiting for forty minutes. (how long, up to that moment) For how long something went on up to a past moment (for + a period of time), use the past perfect continuous, not the past continuous.

State verbs (know, be, have = own, believe, like) usually stay simple: She had had that car for twenty years.

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