Download Tenses - past perfect and perfect continuous

UNIVERSIDAD CRISTIANA DE LAS ASAMBLES DE DIOS
SCIENCES AND ARTS FACULTY
ENGLISH MAJOR BASED ON EDUCATION
Professor
Student
B.A. Misael M. Sigüenza C.
Grammar 1
Schedule 6:30am-9:50am
Date
01/14th,2014
The idea that comes to our minds when we hear the words “perfect tense” is
that it is very difficult, however that is not necessarily the case. The past perfect
tense is easy to understand, the main concept of this tense is that expresses
an action taking place before a certain time in the past,
We have already studied the simple past, we know that it refers to one thing
that happened in the past and is over, however, we use the Past perfect tense
when we are referring to more than one thing that happened in the past and we want to show or indicate which of
these two things occurred first in the past, that is why this tense is usually called “the past of the past”, let’s take
a look at the following example.
E.g. 1.
SENTENCE: The meeting had already started by the time I arrived
Look at the following time line, see when each event occurred and which one happened first
Event 1: The meeting started at 8:00 am
Event 2: he arrived later at 8:15am
We will be able to identify or construct the past perfect tense using signal words or phrases such as when, by the
time, etc.
Form of Past Perfect Simple
The past perfect is formed simply using the auxiliary “HAD” for all the persons plus the past participle
of the verb
Formula:
AFFIRMATIVE [S+ HAD+ VERB IN PAST PARTICIPLE+ C]
NEGATIVE [S+ HAD+ NOT+ VERB IN PAST PARTICIPLE+ C]
INTERROGATIVE [HAD+ S+ VERB IN PAST PARTICIPLE+ C + ?]
Positive
I had spoken.
Negative
Question
I had not spoken. Had I spoken?
** For irregular verbs, use the past participle form. For regular verbs, just add d, ed or ied according to the needs
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.
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?
How do we use the Past Perfect Continuous Tense?
The Past Perfect Continuous is used to talk about actions or situations that were in progress before
some other actions or situations. There are also other uses.
Use 1: Duration of a Past Action


The main use of the Past Perfect Continuous is to express actions or situations that were in
progress before some other actions or situations.
The boys had been quarreling for half an hour when we arrived home.
I had been dating Angelina for 3 years before we got married.
Use 2: Showing Cause




Use this tense to show cause of an action or situation in the past.
John was in a detention because he had been misbehaving.
The road was wet because it had been raining.
I had to go on a diet because I had been eating too much sugar.
Jessica got sunburnt because she had been lying in the sun too long.
Use 3: Third Conditional
We talk about a condition in the past that did not happen. That is why there is no
possibility for this condition. The third conditional is also like a dream, but with no
possibility of the dream coming true.


If it hadn't been raining, we would have gone to the park.
if he had not been sleeping, we would have gone to visit him
Use 4: Reported Speech
It is used to express what other person has said without using the exact same words that the
speaker used
E.g.
Michelle (Speaker): Charlie had been lying to me
Robert (Reporter): She said she knew Charlie had been lying to her.
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?