Past perfect continuous

English grammar questions, answered by Alan

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miwowwow
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Past perfect continuous

Post by miwowwow »

I'm confused about the past perfect continuous sentence. One YouTuber who is an English teacher is explaining that there is a slight difference between the following two sentences, which makes me confused.

It had been raining for two hours when I left the house.

It had been raining when I left the house.

In his explanation, in the sentence No.1, it was still raining when I left the house.

On the other hand, in the sentence No.2, he's saying that it stopped raining when I left the house, whuch means that I left home after it stopped raining.

In my understanding about the past perfect continuous, the moment when a past event happens should be included in the period where a continuous event keeps occurring. So, I'm confused about this YouTuber's explanation of the sentence No.2 especially.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2aXMCv ... J&index=10
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Alan
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Re: Past perfect continuous

Post by Alan »

In my understanding about the past perfect continuous, the moment when a past event happens should be included in the period where a continuous event keeps occurring.

This is in fact not necessarily the case, and a past perfect can, depending on context, also refer to an event that had already finished just before the moment in question but where its effect(s) could still be felt in some way. Essentially, the deciding factor is the presence/absence of a for- or since-phrase.
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