GIVE ANSWERS - English

The sentence ”I had been working in the office for 5 years.” using the past perfect simple tense form, yes perfectly grammatically correct (except for ”I” instead of ”i” and the lack of a full-stop at the end

Yes, it is correct in the context of work in an office for a period of 5 years before a point in time sometime in the past. For example, someone talks about what they did previously prior to the year 2000 which they discuss which is relevant to the conversation:

- ”Did you have any previous experience when you started your present job in 2000?”
- Yes, I had been working in an office for 5 years. This was between 1991 and 1995.

Here, the important information is the 5-year period before the 2000 start - this directly relates to the experience of working before the 2000 time point in the past. We use a past perfect form here because of that.

Because ”experience” is a process that happens over a period of time, we tend to use the continuous form of the tense. So we usually use the past perfect continuous tense form here.

The years 1991 and 1995 are secondary information which gives the dates but does not directly relate to the important information - experience of working - so uses simple past.