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Present perfect continuous |
A combination of the present perfect and the present continuous? Let's find out! |
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| A) Excuse the mess. We've been decorating (but now we are finished). / John's tired. He's been running. |
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In these two examples we are talking about a recently finished activity where the results can be seen in the present. |
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B) He's been training hard for his big race next week. / They've been cleaning up Beijing in preparation for the Olympics in August. |
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Here we are talking about an action (usually temporary) which started in the past and continued into the present but will continue on into the future. Emphasis is placed on the incompletion or the ongoing nature of the action. |
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Let's have a look at how we construct the present perfect continuous tense. Look at the underlined parts of the sentences above. |
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| Subject |
auxiliary verb |
V3 verb to be |
verb+ing |
| He |
has |
been |
cleaning. |
| They |
have |
been |
running. |
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We've looked at all the tenses with 'present' in their names. It's now time to move into the past! |
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Past |
Past simple |
At last a tense with 'simple' in the name that actually turns out to be fairly simple! |
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Let's look at some example sentences: |
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| A)
I went to Africa last year. / I played football yesterday. / I saw the latest Indiana Jones movie last week. |
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All of these sentences talk about actions that happened at a specific time (last year, yesterday and last week) in the past. To form the past simple tense, we need the following components: |
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| Subject |
V2 |
| I |
ate (pizza for dinner last night). |
| They |
walked (to work yesterday). |
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Past continuous |
Another tense that looks like a combination of two different tenses. |
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| A)
I was taking a shower when the phone rang. / While she was reading a book the lights went out. / They were watching television when Jimmy arrived. |
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In the examples above there are two actions that both happened in the past. In each sentence, one action interrupted the other. The action that interrupts is in the past simple. |
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The form here is as follows: |
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| Subject |
verb to be -was/were |
verb+ing |
| When the lights failed, he |
was |
playing (football). |
| As I |
was |
eating (John rang). |
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