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Query on Tenses

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devinawilliam83
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Query on Tenses [#permalink] New post   19 Jan 2012, 05:17
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

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Re: Query on Tenses [#permalink] New post   19 Jan 2012, 09:19
Being a little more specific would help people to understand your doubt.
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Re: Query on Tenses [#permalink] New post   19 Jan 2012, 22:57
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?
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Re: Query on Tenses [#permalink] New post   21 Jan 2012, 19:04
devinawilliam83 wrote:
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?


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.
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Re: Query on Tenses [#permalink] New post   22 Jan 2012, 10:01
devinawilliam83 wrote:
for example:
past cont - he was eating when I arrived
past perfect cont - he had been eating when i arrived

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


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[erfect, which in this case makes more sense.

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Re: Query on Tenses [#permalink]
22 Jan 2012, 10:01
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