Mar 05, 2012

Hi guys. Hope you had a good weekend.

So we have been talking about the 11 main tenses in English. Today we're going to talk about the past perfect simple and past perfect continuous forms.

These are logical. If you know the tenses we did last week then you should be able to learn these quickly. Of course, you need to remember that perfect tenses use have+ past participle and continuous tenses use be + past participle. Perfect continuous tenses require have + be+ present participle.

7. Past perfect
It is always had + past participle:

They had been friends for ages.
The woman had walked 10 miles.

Of course, you always need to know the irregular past participles.

8. Past perfect continuous
In this case, we need to use had + been + present participle:

The baker had been cooking for 5 hours.
I had been trying to explain but he interrupted.

I've said this before but English learners need to know the form before they use the tense; and knowing the form is easy, but using the tenses is more difficult. Once you know the form, practise, practise, practise.

See you tomorrow!

Good luck with your English.

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