Past Perfect Continuous: Listen and Make Sentences - Part 6

Listen to the sound and make a sentence in the past perfect continuous

Press to play

I had been ……. for hours before I finally …….

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Rule: Past Perfect Continuous – B1 Grammar ShowHide

had been + -ing

An activity that went on for some time up to a moment in the past.

How long – with for, since, all day: Pam had been doing the same job for ten years before she tried something different.
The cause of a past result: Driving to work was difficult as it had been snowing all night.

I hadn't been sleeping well.
His clothes were covered in mud. What had he been doing?

Past Perfect Simple instead

had + 3rd form – the focus is on a finished action or its result.

How many, how much: I had looked at twenty flats before I found one I liked.
Done before another moment: I had finished my homework by the time my friends arrived.
Something that didn't happen: We were hungry because we hadn't eaten since breakfast.
State verbs – know, like, have (own): We had known each other for years.

Ask yourself: is it about the duration, how long it was going on? Take the continuous: They had been filming the same scene for three hours. Is it about the result, what was done or how many times? Take the simple: The phone had rung six times before they answered it.

What had been going on?

No pictures this time, only sound. Listen, work out what was happening, and say it with the past perfect continuous: the dog had been barking for hours before it finally calmed down. Each sound comes with the shape of a sentence to fill in.

Seven recordings. Level B1 – good for a warm-up or a quick round of speaking.