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Past Perfect Continues - what this time is need for??

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AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgJanuary 2023

To emphasise the continuity of an event where a past perfect form is required, e.g. ”past in the past”.

For example: It had been raining, so we got wet when we stepped outside.

So, the action of the fall of the rain which started at a point before the past time we consider - when we leave inside to go outside - causes us to become wet at that point in the past.

We don’t know if the rain stops falling before the point in the past, at the point in the past, after that point in the past but still in the past, the present point of time or even the future! We don’t have enough context in this sentence.

The important feature of past perfect continuous is that the action began at a point ”past in the past”, is relevant or related to the specific ”point in the past” and has a continuous action associated with it.

There are other uses of past perfect continuous, but I won’t go into these. I’ve given you enough information already smile.gif

  • AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMarch 2023
    I can also add to this answer that there are some dialects of English such as those in the south of the US and other regions of the US, and colloquial English dialects in India, where they don’t use past perfect continuous tense forms. It’s great to speak like this if you want to use regional US or Indian English dialects, but it’s not really standard English.

    My experience is that most educated English speakers from the US or India are able to freely use past perfect continuous tense forms and are able to differentiate them from past perfect simple and simple past tense forms.

    Unfortunately, some speakers of regional dialects will insist that only their dialect is the ”correct” one. That includes how perfect tenses are used. It even gets worse
    with many (more likely most) of the certification language schools/”schools” in places like India and The Philippines writing grammatical notes on their web pages which are ”correct usage” for their regional English dialects but are now how formal English is used in these places nor even resemble standard English.

    For that matter, there are some native speakers of English in places such as the US who have difficulties differentiating between simple and perfect tense forms. Their usual response to the question ”the difference between simple and perfect tense forms” is ”they mean the same thing”. No they don’t!

    It’s true that perfect and simple tenses have a similar meaning, For example, present perfect and simple past talk about ”something in the past”. However, they express different aspects of the past related to the present. Present perfect talks about events beginning in the past and are important for the present context. Simple past describes facts or information from the past which are secondary to the context of the present point in time.

    What I’ve noticed about such native speakers is that they generally have poor basic writing and reading skills. For instance, they are also only able to respond to questions and posts with 2 or 3 sentence answers.

    One reason for that is substantially longer texts require using both simple and perfect tense forms correctly - longer texts have both things of relevance to the context from the past as well as secondary facts and information. These native English speakers get caught out when what they write extends beyond several sentences...