perfectcontinuous

The perfect continuous, also called the perfect progressive, is a verb aspect in English that combines the perfect and continuous aspects. It is used to express actions that began in the past and continue up to the present or have recently stopped, with emphasis on duration.

Formation in its three main tenses is as follows. Present tense: have/has been + present participle (for example, I have been studying). Past tense: had been + present participle (for example, She had been waiting). Future tense: will have been + present participle (for example, By next month, I will have been living here for two years). Negative forms use not, as in I have not been sleeping. Questions invert the subject and have/has/had.

Common uses include highlighting duration (I have been studying for three hours), showing actions that began in the past and continue to the present, and indicating recent activities with present relevance (They have been talking about it all day). It can also express repeated actions within a time span or expectations about ongoing activity.

This aspect is contrasted with the present perfect simple (I have studied), which emphasizes result, and with the present continuous (I am studying), which emphasizes the activity at the moment rather than its duration. The perfect continuous is typically used with time expressions such as for and since, and is less common with non-action verbs, where the simple perfect is preferred.