|
The Perfect Progressive Tenses |
For VOA Learning English, this is Everyday Grammar.
Make sure you see our episodes on progressive and
perfect tenses before trying to learn the perfect
progressive tenses.
For English learners, the perfect progressive tenses can
be scary.
But they are more straightforward than you might think.
When you talk about grammar, perfect means “complete,”
and progressive means “unfinished.”
Perfect progressive sentences focus on the completion of
an action that is, was or will be in progress.
Think about this sentence in the past perfect
progressive:
“I had been waiting for three years by the time my
application was approved.” In this example, the emphasis
is on duration of the first verb waiting.
Perfect progressive tenses often answer the question how
long? There are three perfect progressive tenses: the
present perfect progressive, the past perfect
progressive, and the future perfect progressive. |
| |
Past Perfect Progressive |
Present Perfect Progressive |
Future Perfect Progressive |
PERFECT PROGRESSIVE
TENSES |
It had been snowing for two
days before it stopped.
Had been + -ing verb +
for/since |
It has been snowing all month
long.
Has/have + -ing verb +
for/since |
It will have been snowing for
three days by the time it stops.
Will have been + -ing
verb + for/since |
|
Present Perfect Progressive
Let’s start with the present perfect progressive. You
form the present perfect progressive by using have been
(or has been) followed by an –ing verb.
For instance, “She has been sitting in class since early
this morning.” The action, sitting, is continuing. But
the emphasis is on the completed part of the action.
Here are some more examples:
I have been waiting for 20 minutes.
I have been studying since I was a child.
It has been snowing all day long.
In all of these sentences, the emphasis is on how the
finished activity relates to the present.
A time reference is not required to use the present
perfect progressive. Sometimes we use it to refer to
recently completed actions.
Imagine your friend comes to your house with red, puffy
eyes. You might say, “Your eyes are red. Have you been
crying?”
Or you notice that a co-worker is looking tanned. You
might ask, “You look tanned. Have you have been
sunbathing?”
Remember that stative verbs cannot be used in any
progressive tense. A stative verb describes unchanging
situations, often mental states such as realize, appear
and seem.
You should not say, “I’ve been knowing you for a long
time.” If you have a stative verb, use the present
perfect: “I have known you for a long time.”
Almost all native speakers will contract, or shorten the
pronoun that comes before have or has. “I have been”
will sound like, “I’ve been.”
Expert grammarian and teacher Betty Azar tells English
learners: “Don’t expect slow, careful pronunciation of
helping verbs in normal conversation.”
Past Perfect Progressive
Let us move on to the past perfect progressive. The past
perfect progressive emphasizes the duration of a past
action before another action happened.
For example, “I had been smoking for 10 years before I
quit.”
You form the past perfect progressive by using had been
followed by an –ing verb.
Notice how the past perfect progressive often includes
the adverbs for and since to express duration. You will
also see the adverbs before, when or by the time used to
introduce a second action.
The second action uses the simple past tense. Here are
some more examples:
I had been studying for 12 years by the time I graduated from
high school.
She had been living there since she was a child.
He had been teaching for 12 years before he was certified.
The past perfect progressive can also describe a
recently completed action. For instance:
My clothes were wet because it had been raining.
He was talking loudly because he had been drinking.
Future Perfect Progressive
We will end with the future perfect progressive. The
future perfect progressive describes the duration of an
action as it relates to a future event.
There are two ways to form the future perfect
progressive. Both require two actions. One is by using
“will have been” plus a present participle, followed by
“when” or “by the time” and the second action.
For example, “I will have been working for 35 years by
the time I retire.” Notice that the second planned
action, retire, is in the simple present. The simple
future is never used with the second action.
The other way to form the future perfect progressive is
using “be going to have been” plus a present participle
followed by “when” or “by the time” and the second
action. The order of the actions can be reversed with
either form.
For example, “By the time the plane arrives, I am going
to have been waiting for five hours.”
With the future perfect progressive, it is not always
clear if the –ing verb started in the past or will
start in the future. For example, “The doctor will have
been working for 24 hours by the time his shift is
finished.”
The future perfect progressive is rare because it is
difficult to know the duration of an activity relative
to another future event.
And those are the three perfect progressive tenses in
English.
We have been talking about verb tenses for several weeks
now. It is time to move on to other topics. We leave you
with a present perfect progressive song by the music
band "Foreigner."
"I’ve been waiting for a girl like you
To come into my life"
I’m John Russell.
And I’m Jill Robbins.br />
AAdam Brock wrote this story for Learning English. Jill
Robbins and Kathleen Struck were the editors. |
|
