Past Perfect Continuous ( I had been doing)

UNIT 22 Past Perfect Continuous.

A.   Study this example situation: 
 
Yesterday morning I got up and looked out the window. The sun was shining, but the ground was very wet.

It had been raining.

It wasn't raining when I looked out the window;  the sun was shining. But it had been raining. That's why the ground was wet.

Had been raining is the past perfect continuous tense:

I/he/she (etc.) had (=I'd/he'd/she'd, etc.) been doing.

Here are some more examples:

• When the boys came into the house, their clothes were dirty, their hair was a mess, and one had a black eye. They had been fighting.

• I was very tired when I arrived home. I'd been working hard all day.

B.   You can use the past perfect continuous to say how long something had been happening before something else happened:

• The soccer game had to be stopped. They had been playing for half an hour when there was a terrible storm

• Ken had been smoking for 30 years when he finally gave it up.

C.   the past perfect continuous ( I had been doing) is the past of the present perfect continuous (I had been doing). Compare:

Present                                                                                     Past
How long have you been waiting?(until now)                How long had you been waiting                   He's out of breath. He has been                                           when the bus finally came?
running.                                                                                 He was out of breath. He had been running.

D.   Compare the past perfect continuous (I had been doing) with the past continuous (I was
doing)

• when I looked out the window, it had been raining. (=It wasn't raining when I looked out; it had stopped.

• When I looked out the window, it was raining. (= Rain was falling at the time looked out.)

E.   Some verbs (for example, know) cannot be used in the continuous form.