Past Perfect Progressive (Continuous) Tense

The affirmative past perfect continuous tense consists of:

The subject + had + been + infinitive + (-ing)

For example:

Last year from March to April, my family had been witnessing  a financial crisis .

 

The negative past perfect continuous tense consists of:

The subject + had + not + been + infinitive + (-ing)

For example:

Last month from day 19th to day 21st , my teacher had been testing my English language.

 

The interrogative past perfect continuous tense:

How to make questions using the past perfect continuous tense:

Had + the subject + been + infinitive + (-ing) + the rest of the sentence?

For example:

The question: Had the children been playing for all night yesterday?

The answer: Yes, they had been playing. / No, they had not been playing.

Note: questions made with question words (how, when, where, why, etc,) are constructed as follows:

Question word + had + the subject (noun/ pronoun) + been + infinitive + (-ing) + the rest of the sentence?

For example:

The question: What had the children been playing for all night yesterday?

 

 

When to use the past perfect continuous tense?

Words that express the past perfect continuous tense:

The past perfect continuous tense is used to talk about actions that happened but lasted for a specific time in the past.

In this pattern, it always comes with the next expressions:

Yesterday (All night, all morning, etc.)

Last (week, month, year, etc.) from (time) to (time).

 

For example:

Last week from Tuesday to Friday, we had been studying.