We use past perfect continuous to talk about longer actions or events that happened before or up to another action or event in the past. There are also other uses.
- To express duration of a past action up to a certain point in the past
e.g. She had been waiting for 3 hours when we arrived.
- To show cause of an action or situation
e.g. The grass was wet because it had been raining.
- To express third conditional sentences
e.g. If it had not been raining, we could have gone out.
Rules
- ‘Had been’ is used with subjects
- ‘Since’ is used definite time e.g. since morning, since yesterday, since 5 o’clock
- ‘For’ is used with indefinite time e.g. for 2 years, 3 weeks, 4 hours
Positive form: Subject + had been + First form of Verb with ing + object + since/for + time
Examples:
1. She had been working here for 5 years when she left.
2. He had been sleeping for 2 hours when I reached.
3. I had been studying for 3 hours.
Negative form: Subject + had + not + been+ First form of Verb with ing + since/for + time
Examples:
- I had not been sleeping for 2 days.
- You had not been studying since morning.
- He had not been coming to work for 2 weeks.
Interrogative form: Had + Subject +been+ First form of Verb with ing + object + since/for + time?
Examples:
- Had you been cooking since morning?
- Had he been sleeping since evening?
- Had you been sitting over 3 hours?
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