Past Perfect Continuous (Past Tenses)

The Past Perfect Continuous (Past Perfect Progressive) is used to talk about actions that began in the past and lasted up until another action in the past.

USE

1. Duration of a past action up to a certain point in the past
2. Third conditional sentences
3. Reported speech

Note:Use 1 contains Use 3. This means that Use 1 is also valid in the sentences marked with Use 3.

The PPC is involved when the original tense is the Present Perfect Continuous or the Past Continuous.

"she has been crying" - she said she had been crying

"she was crying" - she said she had been crying

FORM
Declarative sentences:

• I had been running for an hour when it started raining. (Use 1)
• Mary said she had never been swimming so much in one day. (Use 3)
• Kathy put on weight because she had been eating too much sugar. (Use 1)
• Everything had been going well in my life until my world fell apart several months ago. (Use 1)

Questions:

• For how many hours had Fred been painting the house when the ladder fell? (Use 1)
• How long had the player been playing before he scored? (Use 1)

Negative sentences:

• He said he wasn't tired because he hadn't been working that day. (Use 3)
• If it hadn't been raining, we would have played football. (Use 2)
• Had I not been studying all night, I would have problems with this test now. (Use 2)