Past perfect and Past perfect continuous
Past perfect
We use the past
perfect simple to talk about what happened before a point in the past.
It looks back from a point in the past to further in the past.
- I hadn't known the bad news when I spoke to him.
- I checked with the supplier and they still hadn't received the contract.
- She had already told him before I got a chance to give him my version.
- The company has started the year well but was badly hit by the postal strike.
The past perfect simple is often used when we report what people had said/thought/believed.
- He told me they had already paid the bill.
- He said he believed that John had moved to Italy.
- I thought we had already decided on a name for this product.
Past perfect continuous
We use the past perfect continuous to look back at a situation in progress.
- It was a good time to invest. Inflation had been falling for several months.
- Before I changed jobs, I had been working on a plan to reduce production costs.
- We had been thinking about buying a new house but then we decided to stay here.
We use it to say what had been happening before something else happened.
- It had been snowing for a while before we left.
- We had been playing tennis for only a few minutes when it started raining.
- He was out of breath when he arrived because he had been running.
We use it when reporting things said in the past.
- She said she had been trying to call me all day.
- They said they had been shopping.
- I told you I had been looking for some new clothes.
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