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Past Perfect Vs. Past Perfect Progressive

December 12, 2013

The past perfect often stumps students since it’s not commonly used. The past perfect progressive, also known as the past perfect continuous, seems even more complicated! But these two verb tenses don’t have to be a mystery to students. With the following helpful diagrams and chart, your students will be able to recognize and use these tenses when needed.

Past Perfect

HAD + P.P.

The past perfect is formed with the past auxiliary verb had and the past participle of the main verb. It is used when the first past action finishes before the second past action.

Past Perfect chart

Past Perfect Progressive

HAD + BEEN + ‑ING VERB

The past perfect progressive is formed with the past auxiliary verb had, the past participle auxiliary verb been, and the present participle form (‑ing) of the main verb. It is used when the first past action continues until the second past action.

Past Perfect Progressive chart

Note

If you want to elaborate for more advanced students, you can explain that the past perfect progressive is formed by combining the past perfect (had + p.p.) plus the basic progressive pattern (be + ‑ing verb). Since the past participle of the Be verb is been, you get had + been + ‑ing verb when combined.

Comparison Chart

To compare the two verb tenses and show your students examples, use the following verb chart. You can print out the chart and make photocopies, show them on the computer, or write it out on the board.

Past Perfect Vs. Past Perfect Progressive Grammar & Usage Resource

Past Perfect Vs. Past Perfect Progressive – Grammar & Usage

Important Note

When giving your students examples, it is very important to mix up the order of the independent and dependent clauses. Make sure that you give some examples where the independent clause comes first (with the past perfect or past perfect progressive), and others where the dependent clause comes first (with the simple past).

Point out that when the dependent clause comes first, students must use a comma between the clauses. Showing both types of examples means that students won’t simply memorize “had + p.p. first, past verb second,” which can cause errors.

Did You Know?

English speakers often don’t bother with these complicated verb tenses, especially in informal speaking and writing. In most cases, you can substitute the simple past in place of the past perfect, and the past progressive in place of the past perfect progressive, with no change in meaning. Often the context or the time markers are enough to make the timing clear. Consider the following examples:

  • My friend had texted me five times before I answered. (past perfect)
  • My friend texted me five times before I answered. (simple past, same meaning)
  • We had been waiting for two hours before she arrived. (past perfect progressive)
  • We were waiting for two hours before she arrived. (past progressive, same meaning)

Practice

For more tips, examples, and practice exercises, try the Past Perfect and the Past Perfect Progressive lessons in the Grammar Practice Worksheets section. These lessons include mixed exercises that compare the past perfect and the past perfect progressive tenses as well as the past perfect with the simple past and present perfect.

For Fun

The Grammar Police shared this photo on Facebook a while ago. Try analyzing it with your students! See if they can figure out why it’s grammatically correct to use four “hads” in a row in this sentence: All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.

Answer

Think of the first part of the sentence like this: He had had a lot of faith by the time he was an old man.

Think of the second part of the sentence like this: His faith had had no effect on the outcome of his life by the time he was an old man.

If you join them together, and the context of age is implied, then you can get this result: All the faith he had had [subject] had had [main verb] no effect [object] on the outcome of his life.

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Comments (21)

Justin Ross(Guest)

Hi, there! This is great! It explains the past perfect and past perfect progressive clearly. I also love the poster. I will definitely use this in my grammar classes.

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Justin! I'm happy you liked the poster. I always found that my TOEIC students benefited from a side-by-side comparison of tenses. :)

Michal (Guest)

Really nice and concise explanation.

I hope this will motivate me to use it more often, cause I can't remember a time when I used it.

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

Thank you Michal! Yes, it is tough to keep all the rules and explanations straight! That was part of the reason for making the comparison chart, so that teachers could print it out and refer to it anytime. :)

lellia (Guest)

thank you for your explanation :D

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

You're very welcome, Lellia!

sudirman (Guest)

fruitful explanation

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

Thank you!

Paul Matthews(Guest)

In your example 'After they studied verb tenses all week, the students had had enough grammar!', I think it would be better to replace the preterite 'studied' with the gerund-participle 'studying': 'After studying verb tenses all week ... . The reason is that the temporal adjuncts 'after' and 'all week' do not sit well with the preterite in this instance.

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

Hi Paul, thanks for your comment. You can definitely shorten an adverb clause ('after they studied verb tenses all week') into an adverb phrase ('after studying verb tenses all week'); however, this doesn't demonstrate the usual past perfect pattern that students need to learn! I agree that adverb phrases are more common in speaking (as most shortened forms usually are), but the clause form is also correct and is relevant here in order to show students the 'adv + past, had + p.p.' pattern associated with the past perfect.

Justin (Guest)

That's excellent on your part of saying that past progressive and past perfect progressive are the same by citing a good example. I appreciate your teaching.

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

Thanks, Justin! Glad you found it helpful.

Peywa (Guest)

Thank you so much ! i had problem of understanding but you saved mee ! Appreciate your efforts Lovely Tanyaa ....

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

I'm glad you found it helpful, Peywa! Thanks for you comment.

Yesenia A.(Member)

Thanks for all your support in the English material

Reply to Comment

Yesenia A.(Member)

Really pretty materials!
Thanks a lot <3

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

Thanks for both of your kind comments, Yesenia!

Maksym P.(Teacher)

Hi, Tanya! Thanks for your article. Could you please comment on the usage of the Past P.P. when talking about actions that started in the past, continued up to another point in the past and might or might not also continue after? Can we use this tense in this context, or should we use the Past P.P. only for progressive actions which ended before another action in the past? I am talking this (found on ELL Stackexchange):

The past perfect continuous doesn't imply an end. E.g:

I had been skating for years when I won my first competition.

That sentence is compatible with either ending, e.g:

I still skate, but not competitively.

I gave up skating when I broke my leg.

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

Hi Maksym,

This is a very good question. The way I think of it, and the way I would teach my students, is this: Use the past perfect progressive only to focus on a continuing past action that ends at another, later point in the past. Whether or not that action continues after that has nothing to do with the past perfect progressive and simple past verbs in a sentence.

So in the sentence "I had been skating for years when I won my first competition," the ONLY focus is that it took a long time and a lot of practice before I won a competition. Whether I continued skating after that or quit is irrelevant to that sentence and those verb tenses. If you wanted to make the time after that relevant, you'd either need to add another sentence (e.g., I've been skating ever since / I continued skating for five more years / I quit the next day) or use the present perfect progressive (e.g., I have been skating for years, and I won my first competition five years in).

Think of it this way: If I said "I will go skating tomorrow," does that mean it will be my first time or that I've been doing it for years? We have no way of knowing because it's completely outside of the purview of that tense. So to answer your question, the past perfect progressive doesn't cover any kind of future meaning, so either case (still skating, gave up skating) is possible.

You might also be interested to know that we're making a comprehensive grammar video on the past perfect vs. the past perfect progressive that will be up on our site in January, but in the meantime, let me know if you have any further questions, Maksym!

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