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past tense

Past Perfect Continuous Tense Examples – All Four Forms

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In this article various forms of Past Perfect Continuous Tense examples are given to help understand different ways in which the tense is used in real life English communication. Also in the end some sentences are given for your practice.

Past Perfect Continuous Tense Examples

Past Perfect Continuous Tense
Mary had been working as a nun for 30 years when she passed away in 2015. This shows an action that started in the past and continued for a period of time until some action happened in the past. Past perfect continuous tense, like the past perfect, is used in combination with the simple past tense.

Structure: Subject + Had been + Verb 1 (V1) + Ing + Object

  • Rahul had been waiting for the bus for half an hour when his friend picked him up.
  • She had been watching the movie for two hours.
  • The previous king had been alive when his heir became the new king.
  • During this time last year, it had been raining for three days continuously.
  • When I went to college, the lecture had been going on for half an hour already.

Rule: This tense is also used for expressing an action in the past which is repeated many times. For example,

  • She had been trying to contact you.

Past Perfect Continuous Tense Examples

Like every tense, the past perfect continuous also has four forms through which it can be expressed. The four are as follows:

Positive : Subject + Had been + Verb 1 (V1) + Ing + Object

Positive Interrogative : Had +Subject + been + V1 + ing + Object?

Negative: Subject + Had not been + Verb 1 (V1) + Ing + Object

Negative Interrogative : Had +Subject + not been + V1 + ing + Object?

Look at the following example

She had been trying to contact you – the four forms of the above example can be written as

  • Positive : She had been trying to contact you.
  • Positive Interrogative : Had she been trying to contact you?
  • Negative: She had not been trying to contact you.
  • Negative Interrogative : Had she not been trying to contact you?

Exercise: Let us take some more examples and write them in all the four forms.

  • Had she not been aspiring to get a job?
  • I had not been planning this meeting with you.
  • She had been writing her first novel when she turned 10.

For remaining Tenses, Click here

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Past Continuous tense Example Sentences – All Four Forms

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To understand Tenses in English, the best way is to know how they are actually used in daily communication. This means that, once you learn the usage and structure of a particular tense you need to look at various forms of examples of that tense. In this article, lets look at various forms of Past Continuous Tense Example Sentences.

Past Continuous Tense Example Sentences

Structure: Subject + Was/ Were + Verb 1 (V1) + ing + Object

I was watching Soccer on TV last night.Past continuous tense was expressed in sentences containing an action that was happening at some time in the past.

  • He was working as a teacher during this time last year.
  • I was visiting London in May last year.

Some more rules:

  • This tense is used when two actions were simultaneously happening in the past. For example, “While he was doing the dishes, I was preparing lunch”. Here, both the deeds were happening in the past at the same time.
  • This tense can also be used along with simple past tense. For example, “While I was going to the theater, I saw him on the road.”

Past Continuous tense Example Sentences

Like every tense, the past continuous tense too can be expressed in the following forms

Positive : Subject + was/were + V1 + ing + Object

Positive Interrogative : Was/were + subject + V1 + ing + Object?

Negative : Subject + was/were not + V1 + ing + Object

Negative Interrogative : Was/were not + subject + V1 + ing + Object?

Let us take an example and write it in the above four forms.

  • Positive : They were watching a film.
  • Positive Interrogative : Were they watching a film?
  • Negative : They were not watching a film.
  • Negative Interrogative : Were they not watching a film?

Exercise: Let’s take some more Past Continuous tense Example Sentences and try to write the four forms of all those.

  1. I was being loud in the classroom.
  2. She wasn’t going to write that poem.
  3. He was waiting for you in the hall before he left.
  4. It was getting darker.

For remaining Tenses, Click here

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