Page 44 - English Grammar in Use

Unit
16 Past perfect continuous (I had been doing)

A Study this example situation:

yesterday morning Yesterday morning I got up and looked out of the window.
The sun was shining, but the ground was very wet.
It had been raining.
It was not raining when I looked out of the window.
The sun was shining. But it had been raining before.

had been -ing is the past perfect continuous:
doing
I/we/you/they had (= I’d etc.) been working
he/she/it (= he’d etc.)
playing etc.

Some more examples:
My hands were dirty because I’d been repairing my bike.
Tom was tired when he got home. He’d been working hard all day.
I went to Madrid a few years ago and stayed with a friend of mine. She hadn’t been living
there very long, but she knew the city very well.
You can say that something had been happening before something else happened:
We’d been playing tennis for about half an hour when it started to rain heavily.

B Compare have been -ing (present perfect continuous) and had been -ing (past perfect continuous):

Present perfect continuous Past perfect continuous

I have been -ing I had been -ing
past now past now

I hope the bus comes soon. I’ve been At last the bus came. I’d been waiting
waiting for 20 minutes. (before now) for 20 minutes. (before the bus came)
James is out of breath. He’s been James was out of breath. He’d been
running. (= he has been …) running. (= he had been …)

C Compare was -ing (past continuous) and had been -ing:
It wasn’t raining when we went out. The sun was shining. But it had been raining,
so the ground was wet.
Katherine was lying on the sofa. She was tired because she’d been working hard.

D Some verbs (for example, know) are not normally used in continuous forms (be + -ing):
We were good friends. We had known each other for years. (not had been knowing)
A few years ago Lisa cut her hair really short. I was surprised because she’d always had
long hair. (not she’d been having)
For a list of these verbs, see Unit 4A. For have, see Unit 17

32 Present perfect continuous ➜ Units 9–10 Past perfect simple ➜ Unit 15