Query on Tenses

Question

Hi All,

Am just not able to understand the diffreence between progressive and perfect progressive tenses
Could any body please throw some light on how and when to apply these. Thanks

dreamchase · Answer

Being a little more specific would help people to understand your doubt.

devinawilliam83 · Answer

for example:
past cont - he  was eating  when I arrived
past perfect cont - he  had been eating  when i arrived

in both cases the even started and continued when the second event happened.so how to distinguish when to use which ?

Also,isnt HAD BEEN past progressive and not past perfect?

ugen64 · Answer

Not quite - your 2nd statement (he  had been eating ) isn't quite correct grammatically. Basically, the difference is that past progressive tense refers to 2 actions happening  at the same time , while past perfect progressive tense refers to 1 action happening  before  the other one. Here are some examples:

1) I was sad when my pet hamster died.
2) I had been sad until I got a new pet hamster.

The difference:

1) "Sad" and "pet hamster died" happened at the same time.
2) "Sad" happened before "I got a new pet hamster".

Hope this makes sense.

dreamchase · Answer

In addition to what ugen said, to answer your query :
 had been eating - is past perfect continuous.
He  had eaten  when I arrived - is past p

Query on Tenses

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