Past perfect continuous tense examples

The perfect progressive tenses, or perfect continuous tenses, are three tenses, namely the past perfect progressive, present perfect progressive, and future perfect progressive.

Past perfect progressive

The past perfect progressive, or past perfect continuous, is used to talk about an event that had been happening over a specific period of time in the past, and may still be continuing now.

The past perfect progressive is formed by the following formula: Subject + had + been + present participle of main verb + object.

Example:

1. I had been studying English for four years, and really wanted to give up.
2. I had been playing football for two hours when Dad told me to leave.

Note that the period of time is usually stated unless it is mentioned before.

Present perfect progressive

The present perfect progressive, or present perfect continous, is used to talk about an event that has been happening over a