Use the Past Perfect Continuous for an activity that had been going on up to a moment in the past, often to say how long or to explain a past situation: She was tired because she had been working all day. Form: had been + -ing.
I had been waiting for an hour when the bus came.
A bar that runs up to a moment in the past, the way the Present Perfect Continuous runs up to now.
| Positive | I'd been working. · She'd been working. |
|---|---|
| Negative | I hadn't been working. |
| Question | Had you been working? |
We had been driving for six hours when we stopped.
The length of an activity measured up to a point in the past.
The ground was wet because it had been raining.
An earlier activity explains what you saw or felt at a past moment.
Words that often go with this tense. They're hints, not rules.
Her eyes were red. She _____.
Other past tenses: Past Simple, Past Continuous, Past Perfect.
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Use the continuous for the activity and how long it lasted (I had been writing for hours) and the simple for the result or how many (I had written ten pages).
Less than most. It appears mainly in stories and in explanations of past situations, but you'll meet it in exams and careful writing.
State verbs, which describe states rather than actions: know, believe, understand, like, love, hate, want, need, prefer, own, belong, seem, mean. They normally stay simple even when you mean 'right now': I know, not I'm knowing.