UNIT VIII

PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE

(Bentuk lampau selesai sedang berlangsung)

A.    Penggunaan :

Untuk menyatakan suatu peristiwa atau kejadian yang telah terjadi sedang berjalan langsung, ketika peristiwa lain terjadi di waktu lampau.

B.     Keterangan waktu :

Keterangan waktu Past Perfect Continuous tense, hampir sama penggunaannya dan saling bergantian dengan Past Perfect tense jadi yang dipentingkan tergantung kontek kalimat dalam pembicaraan.

-          … when                      :   ketika

-          … by last                     :   menjelang … yang lalu

-          … by yesterday           :   menjelang kemarin

C.    Susunan kalimat :

1. Positive (+) :

(+) Subject + had + been + V ing

Subject	had	been	Verb ing	Object
I	had	been	writing	a story
You We They			buying cleaning playing	a shirt the room tennis
He She It			going giving swimming	to school a present very fast

2. Negative (-) :

(-) Subject + had not + been + V ing

Subject	had	not	been	Verb ing	Object
I	had	not	been	writing	a story
You We They				buying cleaning playing	a shirt the room tennis
He She It				going giving swimming	to school a present very fast

3. Interrogative (?)

(?) Had + Subject + been + V ing ?

Had	Subject	been	Verb ing	Object
Had	I	been	writing	a story?
	You We They		buying cleaning playing	a shirt? the room? tennis?
	He She It		going giving swimming	to school? a present? very fast?

Past Perfect Continuous Tense

I had been singing

How do we make the Past Perfect Continuous Tense?

The structure of the past perfect continuous tense is:

subject	+	auxiliary verb HAVE	+	auxiliary verb BE	+	main verb
		conjugated in simple past tense		past participle		present participle
		had		been		base + ing

For negative sentences in the past perfect continuous tense, we insert not after the first auxiliary verb. For question sentences, we exchange the subject and first auxiliary verb. Look at these example sentences with the past perfect continuous tense:

	subject	auxiliary verb		auxiliary verb	main verb
+	I	had		been	working.
+	You	had		been	playing	tennis.
-	It	had	not	been	working	well.
-	We	had	not	been	expecting	her.
?	Had	you		been	drinking?
?	Had	they		been	waiting	long?

When speaking with the past perfect continuous tense, we often contract the subject and first auxiliary verb:

I had been	I'd been
you had been	you'd been
he had she had been it had been	he'd been she'd been it'd been
we had been	we'd been
they had been	they'd been

How do we use the Past Perfect Continuous Tense?

The past perfect continuous tense is like the past perfect tense, but it expresses longer actions in the past before another action in the past. For example:

• Ram started waiting at 9am. I arrived at 11am. When I arrived, Ram had been waiting for two hours.

Ram had been waiting for two hours when I arrived.
past	present	future
Ram starts waiting in past at 9am.
9 11
I arrive in past at 11am.

Here are some more examples:

• John was very tired. He had been running.
• I could smell cigarettes. Somebody had been smoking.
• Suddenly, my car broke down. I was not surprised. It had not been running well for a long time.
• Had the pilot been drinking before the crash?

You can sometimes think of the past perfect continuous tense like the present perfect continuous tense, but instead of the time being now the time is past.

past perfect continuous tense				present perfect continuous tense
had | been | doing | >>>> |	| | | |			| | | |	have | been | doing | >>>> |
past	now	future		past	now	future

For example, imagine that you meet Ram at 11am. Ram says to you:

• "I am angry. I have been waiting for two hours."

Later, you tell your friends:

• "Ram was angry. He had been waiting for two hours."

The past perfect continuous tense is used to talk about longer situations that continued up to the moment in the past we are talking about.

Past Perfect Continuous Timeline

For example:
"By the time I left England we had been living in Bristol for five years."
"Her back was sore because she had been sitting at the computer all day."
It is also used to say how long something went on for, up to a time in the past.
For example:-
We apologised because we had kept them waiting for 3 hours.
We apologised because we had kept them waiting since lunchtime.
!Note It is always for a length of time and since a point in time.