Practice Past Perfect Continuous Tense | Basic English Grammar Course Check Up
Let's start a checkup for the past perfect continuous tense.
Take a look at the first sentence.
It says, ‘They __ for a long time before they went home.’
Try to fill in the blank with the verb ‘work’ in this tense.
Remember, no matter what the subject, we follow the subject with ‘had been’.
So the sentence is, ‘They had been working for a long time before they went home.’
Now, take a look at the second sentence.
I want you to use the negative.
‘I __ TV for a year before I started again.’
Remember, the negative form for this tense starts with the subject
Or I can use the contraction ‘hadn't’.
‘I hadn't been’ And then again, verb ‘-ing’.
‘I hadn't been watching TV for a year before I started again.’
Now, try to find the mistake in this next sentence.
‘Gina and I hadn't been do any work before we started.’
You'll notice that the verb does not have an ‘-ing’.
To make the sentence correct, we must say, ‘Gina and I hadn't been doing
‘He had be watching YouTube because he had some free time.’
‘He had’, that's correct, but we need to change ‘be’ to been’.
So, ‘He had been watching YouTube because he had some free time.’
Now, let's move on to another checkup of the past perfect continuous tense.
Take a look at the first example.
It says, ‘The company __ employees because they worked hard.’
Use the verb ‘promote’ in the past perfect continuous tense.
Remember, no matter what the subject, we follow with ‘had been’.
So we say, ‘The company had been’ and then verb ‘-ing’, so ‘promoting’.
‘The company had been promoting employees because they worked hard.’
The next example says, ‘I __ your emails for a while because they went to the spam
folder.’
Here, try to use the negative form with the verb ‘get’.
Remember, in the negative form, we say ‘had not been getting’
Or the contraction ‘hadn't been getting’.
‘I hadn't been getting your emails for a while because they went to the spam folder.’
Now look for the mistake in the next sentence.
‘I had been work a lot because I needed the money.’
Remember, we need to add ‘-ing’ to the verb.
‘I had been working a lot because I needed the money.’
The last sentence says, ‘He has been smoking because he was stressed.’
Remember, we're practicing the past perfect continuous.
In this case, we need ‘had’ after the subject, not ‘has’.
Good job learning another difficult English grammar tense.
The past perfect continuous can be tricky, but with time and practice, you will get better.
English is not always easy, but always do your best and never give up.