Past perfect continuous (I had been working)

Past perfect continuous: form

We use had + been + the -ing form of the verb.

+	I, she, he, it, you, we, they	(full form)had	been working.
I, she, he, it, you, we, they	(short form)’d
−	I, she, he, it, you, we, they	(full form)had not	been working.
I, she, he, it, you, we, they	(short form)hadn’t
? +	Had I, she, he, it, you, we, they	been working?
? −	(full form)Had I, she, he, it, you, we, they	not	been working?
(short form)Hadn’t I, she, he, it, you, we, they

See also

• Verbs: basic forms
• Regular verbs
• Irregular verbs

Past perfect continuous: uses

Continuing events in the past

We use the past perfect continuous to talk about actions or events which started before a particular time in the past and were still in progress up to that time in the past:

• It was so difficult to get up last Monday for school. I had been working on my essays the night before and I was very tired.

• (The past perfect continuous focuses on the activity of working on the essays up to a particular time in the past.)

• A: Why did you decide to go travelling for a year?

• B: Well, I*’d*** been reading an amazing book about a woman who rode a horse around South America. I was just halfway through the book when I decided I had to go travelling and that was it. I just took a year out of work and went.

• (The past perfect continuous focuses on the activity of reading the book at the time when she made her decision. She hadn’t finished the book when she made her decision.)

We can use the past perfect continuous to talk about events which started before a time in the past and which finished, but where the effects or results were still important at a point in the past:

• It had been raining and the ground was still wet.

See also

• Past perfect simple or past perfect continuous?