Past Perfect Continuous
For
since
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1. to express an ongoing action in the past before a particular time or another action in the past. The Past Perfect Continuous emphasizes duration of time before something.
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Susan had been studying Spanish for 3 years before she started to learn English.
He had been running until he was out of breath.
They had been watching TV for two hours before Mike came.
Diana had been playing tennis for half an hour when it began to rain.
I had been writing letters before lunch.
At 10 o'clock Kate had been playing the piano for two hours. (She began at 8 o'clock and at 10 o'clock she was still playing.)
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2. for past events or actions which had a result in the past.
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The grass was wet. It had been raining all morning. Tom was very tired. He had been working in the garden for a long time.
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3. The Past Perfect Continuous also appears in third conditional sentences and in reported speech, when we want to emphasize duration of time.
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If he hadn't been reading for hours last night, he would have got up earlier.
She said she had been teaching English for the last three years in Japan.
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!!! Remember, that we use the Past Perfect for finished actions in the past and with state verbs (be, know, belong, hear, believe, like, mean, etc).
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Peter had been there for nearly 2 hours when they finally arrived.
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