Learning English

Feeling tense?

In this activity we're looking at the present perfect continuous tense. It's the one we use to talk about:

1) Activities that started in the past and are continuing now

• We've been learning Spanish this year.

2) An activity which has recently finished

• Have you been smoking? I can smell smoke!

Read the text and complete the activity

To do

We'll explore the form further down this page. But instead of us just telling you the form, why don't you have a go at making it first?

In the activity, there are six sentences which you have to put into the correct order. All the sentences are about a reunion where classmates haven't seen each other for a long time. They're all in the present perfect continuous.

Did you get them all right? Now, let's have a look at the form.

Form

The present perfect continuous is made with:

Subject + have/has/haven't/hasn't + been + present participle of main verb

Positive

• Jack's working very hard for his exams. He's been revising all day.
• I've been working at the café for two weeks.
• You've been watching far too much telly for too long. Why don't you take up a new sport?

Negative

• I haven't been drinking coffee these last few days and my head is much clearer.
• Doctor, I've not been feeling good all the morning.

Question

Present perfect continuous questions are made with:

Have/has not + subject + been + present participle

• Have you been eating all the biscuits? There are none left!
• What have you been doing? You look exhausted!

Next

Well done. You've practised the form, but what's harder than that is knowing exactly when to use this tense. In the next activity, you'll look at situations and decide whether or not the present perfect continuous is appropriate.