![]() ![]() Notice how the past perfect progressive often includes the adverbs for and since to express duration. You form the past perfect progressive by using had been followed by an – ing verb. The past perfect progressive emphasizes the duration of a past action before another action happened.įor example, “I had been smoking for 10 years before I quit.” Let us move on to the past perfect progressive. “I have been” will sound like, “I’ve been.”Įxpert grammarian and teacher Betty Azar tells English learners: “ Don’t expect slow, careful pronunciation of helping verbs in normal conversation.” ![]() You should not say, “I’ve been knowing you for a long time.” If you have a stative verb, use the present perfect: “I have known you for a long time.”Īlmost all native speakers will contract, or shorten the pronoun that comes before have or has. A stative verb describes unchanging situations, often mental states such as realize, appear and seem. Remember that stative verbs cannot be used in any progressive tense. Or you notice that a co-worker is looking tanned. Imagine your friend comes to your house with red, puffy eyes. Sometimes we use it to refer to recently completed actions. In all of these sentences, the emphasis is on how the finished activity relates to the present.Ī time reference is not required to use the present perfect progressive. I have been studying since I was a child. But the emphasis is on the completed part of the action. You form the present perfect progressive by using have been (or has been) followed by an –ing verb.įor instance, “She has been sitting in class since early this morning.” The action, sitting, is continuing. Let’s start with the present perfect progressive. It will have been snowing for three days by the time it stops. It had been snowing for two days before it stopped. Perfect progressive tenses often answer the question how long? There are three perfect progressive tenses: the present perfect progressive, the past perfect progressive, and the future perfect progressive. “I had been waiting for three years by the time my application was approved.” In this example, the emphasis is on duration of the first verb waiting. ![]() Think about this sentence in the past perfect progressive: Perfect progressive sentences focus on the completion of an action that is, was or will be in progress. When you talk about grammar, perfect means “complete,” and progressive means “unfinished.” Make sure you see our episodes on progressive and perfect tenses before trying to learn the perfect progressive tenses.įor English learners, the perfect progressive tenses can be scary.īut they are more straightforward than you might think. This is the last in our four-part series on verb tenses. verbs expressing perception, remembrance, preference, knowledge (mean, know, believe, forget, understand, appreciate, etc.Editor's note: See An Introduction to Verb Tenses for the first story in this series.įor VOA Learning English, this is Everyday Grammar.verbs expressing possession (own, possess, etc.).verbs expressing feelings and emotions (love, hate, fear, hate, etc.).verbs of the senses (see, hear, feel, etc.).Verbs which are not normally used in the continuous are NOTE: The continuous occurs only with verbs that indicate duration and describe activities that are deliberate. for a seemingly continuous and repeated action without mentioning the number of times it has been done (Elisa had been ringing him since breakfast.).for an action which has started in the past, gone on up to the moment of speaking and which has just finished or which possibly continues past it (It was now ten and I was really fed up because I had been waiting for two hours already.). ![]()
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