Perfect progressive aspect
About this video
The perfect progressive aspect combines the perfect (complete) and the progressive (ongoing). It is formed with 'have' + 'been' + a verb ending in -ing: I had been eating, I have been eating, I will have been eating. It can show that something went on for a while and stopped, is still going on, or how long something has been happening.
You'll be able to
- form the perfect progressive using have + been + an -ing verb.
- write the past, present and future perfect progressive.
- explain how the perfect progressive shows an action continuing over time.
Key words
- perfect progressive aspect
- A verb form combining 'have' + 'been' + an -ing verb to show an action continuing over a period of time.
- perfect aspect
- Shows an action is complete.
- progressive aspect
- Shows an action is ongoing.
Transcript
- Hello, grammarians. Previously I had covered three of the basic aspects of English and that's simple, perfect and progressive. And so there's just one more and it's a combination of the last two and it's called the perfect progressive. And to recap what those two things do, is what the perfect does is it denotes something that is complete and the progressive notes something that has been ongoing.
And it seems like those two things together don't make a whole lot of sense but I promise that they do. You can use the perfect progressive aspect to say that you've been doing something for a long time, or you will have done something for a long time, or that you had been doing something continuously in the past and now it's stopped.
So let me explain how the perfect progressive is constructed. You take the verb "to have" and then you combine it with the word "been," and then the verb in question, and then the ending "ing". So, as with all of our aspects, the only part that changes is this "have" stuff.
This is the only word that changes depending on which tense you situate it in. So in the past you would say, "I had." "I had been eating cookies." In the present you would say, "I have been eating cookies." In the future you can say, "I will have been eating cookies."
So you can use the perfect progressive aspect in a couple of different ways. You can say that something had been ongoing in the past and is now done, you can say that it's been ongoing in the past and is still happening now, you know, "I have been eating cookies all morning and "I have no intent to stop."
Or you can use the perfect progressive to say how long something has been going on. So you can say, "I will have been eating cookies for "40 years come next Thursday and I have no regrets." You know, you can say how long something has been going on using this aspect.
But you get the idea, so the perfect progressive is formed by combining "have" and have is the part that changes, I had been, I have been, I will have been, with been and the verb in question with an "ing" ending. You can learn anything, David out.
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