When telling a story or an action about the past, we use the past perfect continuous. In most cases, it is used with other narrative tenses like the past simple.
The past perfect continuous shows an ongoing action in the past up until another past action. It is used to tell the events not in its correct sequence.
Example:
A sentence with the correct sequence of events:
Alice was having a lot of fun at the party, so she decided to stay up late.
A sentence with the events not in order:
Alice decided to stay up late because she had been having a lot of fun at the party.
The ongoing event that took place prior to the other verb is in the past perfect tense.
Put any adverbs between had and been.
She had only been studying in the university for a semester before she got into trouble.
Sam had already been sleeping for an hour.
Form:
| I you he / she / it we they |
had / ‘d hadn’t |
been + verb-ing |