![]() We had hoped to visit Las vegas before we left America The action was finished before another action started at that point *He was throwing rocks at her window for twenty minutes when she came out on the balcony,ĭoes not contain the word before, so it's incorrect, and we need the past perfect continuous.- uses had + verb (v3, the Past Participle) The word before makes the order of events clear, so you do not need the past perfect continuous. He had been throwing rocks at her window for five minutes before she finally came out on the balcony,Īnd how long was I lying on the floor before the ambulance arrived? Suggests that they were hungry because they had been walking. We had been walking since sunrise, and were hungry, Suggests that they were hungry the entire time they were walking, while We were walking since sunrise, and were hungry The order is not clear in Swan's sentence. This rule applies equally to past perfect and to past perfect continuous. The two leaders agreed to meet, even though earlier talks had failed to reach an agreement. If the order of past events is clear from the context (for example, if time expressions make the order clear) we can often use either the past perfect or the past simple:Īfter Ivan had finished reading, he put out the light. See, for example, this website, which says I don't know whether Swan says something to this effect, but if he doesn't, he is wrong. The point you are missing is that if the order of events is clear without the past perfect continuous, you do not need to use it and can use the past continuous instead. I wonder if that difference has any importance in light of the structure we're examining. I'm fully aware of the optional back-shift in reported speech, thank you very much.Īnother, I'd like to thank those of you who pointed out the difference in emphasis between the PPC and PC in the construction at hand. I'd like to assure those people that that thread doesn't answer it, as my question is not about reported speech. ![]() People keep suggesting another thread as a possible answer to my question. When she arrived, she had been travelling for twenty hours, (not ![]() We’d been walking since sunrise, and we were hungry, (not We were Long something had been happening up to a past moment. We use a past perfect progressive, not a past progressive, to say how How long? past perfect progressive, not past progressive Some of you have suggested that it's idiomatic and grammatically correct to say " He was throwing rocks at her window for five minutes before she finally came out on the balcony." andīut that suggestion seems to be in conflict with what Michael Swan's authoritative "Practical English Usage" says: So, should I view that usage as a minor aberration in speech? A slip of the tongue, maybe? Or am I completely misconstruing the whole usage? However, here's a little dialogue in which I heard a well-educated American use past continuous where I would expect to see past perfect continuous:Įrnesto: I'd say, maybe, about a minute, you were kind of in andĬhuck: And how long was I lying on the floor before the ambulanceĮrnesto: About 10 minutes, I think, but I didn't look at the clock. " How long was he throwing rocks at her window before she finally came out on the balcony?" So I draw a conclusion that it would be equally wrong to say: For example, ".at 11:35", ".all day long", ".when she opened the balcony door.", etc.) (As the past continuous tense is natural for particular moments. " He was throwing rocks at her window for five minutes before she finally came out on the balcony." ![]() If I understand it correctly, it would be wrong to say: If you didn't know the part about five minutes, it would be only natural to ask, " How long had he been throwing rocks at the window before she finally came out?" " He had been throwing rocks at her window for five minutes before she finally came out on the balcony." If you search for any video or article that teaches the past perfect continuous tense, you'll surely come across an example such as:
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