First Published: 2nd of January, 2020 by Patrick Carpen.
Last updated: January 2, 2021 at 19:32 pmThe past perfect progressive tense of a verb describes an action which “had been taking place” prior to another action in the past. It is formed with the helping (auxiliary) verb “had,” the past particle of be (been) and a verb ending with “ing.”
Whereas the past perfect tense describes a one-time action which took place and was finished before another action in the past, the past perfect continuous describes an action that had been progressing for some time up to the another past action.
I had been swimming all morning before I took this photo.
The doorbell rang. I went to answer it. It was my best friend whom I hadn’t seen in ages. I looked exhausted because I had been cleaning the house all day.
