Past perfect continuous tense: Learn how to use the past perfect

Learn how to use the past perfect continuous tense to describe actions that started in the past and continued until another point in the past . Find out the formula, structure, rules, functions and examples of this tense with practice questions. Among English tenses , the past perfect continuous tense is a particularly nuanced form that allows us to express the duration of an action that began in the past and continued until another point in the past . Past Perfect Continuous Tense When we want to talk about activities or states of being, we use words that are termed verbs. There are 12 distinct kinds of verb tenses in the English language, and they are used to characterize the various actions and occurrences that can take place. When an action or condition takes place in the past , present, or future depends on the tense of the word. Using the past perfect continuous tense lets us know that an action started in the past , persisted for a ... The past perfect continuous tense , also known as the past perfect progressive tense, describes an action that began in the past and continued until a specified later point in the past.