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The Past Perfect Continuous is used to talk about actions or situations that were in progress before some other actions or situations. There are also other uses.

The main use of the Past Perfect Continuous is to express actions or situations that were in progress before some other actions or situations.

• The boys had been quarreling for half an hour when we arrived home.
• I had been dating Angelina for 3 years before we got married.

Use this tense to show cause of an action or situation in the past.

• John was in a detention because he had been misbehaving.
• The road was wet because it had been raining.
• I had to go on a diet because I had been eating too much sugar.
• Jessica got sunburnt because she had been lying in the sun too long.

Remember that this tense is also used in third conditional sentences.

• If it hadn't been raining, we would have gone to the park.

This tense also appears in Reported speech.

• She said she knew Charlie had been lying to her.

• I had been running for an hour when it started raining. (Use 1)
• Mary said she had never been swimming so much in one day. (Use 4)
• Kathy put on weight because she had been eating too much sugar. (Use 1)
• Everything had been going well in my life until my world fell apart several months ago. (Use 1)

• For how many hours had Fred been painting the house when the ladder fell? (Use 1)
• How long had the player been playing before he scored? (Use 1)

• He said he wasn't tired because he hadn't been working that day. (Use 3)
• If it hadn't been raining, we would have played football. (Use 2)
• Had I not been studying all night, I would have problems with this test now. (Use 2)

Check your understanding!