Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about three different ways to use "had been" in English. Let's get started.
The first way to use "had been" that I want to talk about is to express an interrupted action in the past. We use "had been" as part of the grammar structure to make an expression that does this. So, to visualize this on a timeline, if this is the past -- here, marks the present and the future, we use "had been" in a structure where we pair it with the -ing form of a verb. The -ing form of a verb is the continuous form or the progressive form of a verb. We use "had been," plus the -ing verb form, to refer to a past continuing action. And then, we pair this with a simple past tense expression.
So, the simple past tense expression is the action that happened to stop the previous continuing action. So, to look at a few key points relating to this, we use this "had been," -ing form with "for" or "since" to mark the starting point of the continuing action. So, when did this action start? We express that with "for" or "since." We use this kind of structure with a simple past tense expression, a simple past tense expression. And, you'll find it's very, very common to use the word "when" to mark the point of interruption. To mark this point where the continuing action stopped or was changed in some way. So, you'll find that "when" is commonly, very commonly used in patterns like these. So, let's look at some example sentences and see how we put them together.
First, "I had been studying in silence for two hours when my phone rang." So, here is my "had been," plus my progressive verb form. This is my continuing action, "in silence." "Studying in silence," this means there was no sound. "I was studying very quietly," not listening to music, no interruptions. So, "I had been studying in silence for two hours." So, this part right here, tells me or tells the listener where the action, the continuing action, in the past started. So, the speaker had been studying for two hours "when," here, "when" marks the point at which something happens. There's an interruption. "When my phone rang," my phone rang, past tense expression. So, "ring" is the present tense form of "rang," past tense form. So, for a phone to ring means for a phone to make a sound as in someone is calling. So, this means the speaker was doing a continuous action for two hours, studying. And then, at this point, the speaker's phone rang. So, we use this "had been," plus the -ing form to express this and mark the interruption with simple past tense.
Another example of this, "We had been waiting for a bus for 30 minutes when we heard an announcement that the bus was one hour late." At native speed, this sounds like, "We'd been waiting for a bus for 30 minutes when we heard an announcement that the bus was late," or the bus was one hour late rather. So, again, we see this continuing action, "we had been waiting for a bus." In this case, we have extra information the reason we were waiting, "we'd been waiting for a bus for 30 minutes." So, this tells us the length of the continuing action. So, this is a 30-minute period. "We've been waiting for a bus for 30 minutes when…" So, this is my interruption point, "when we heard," past tense, "we heard an announcement that the bus was one hour late." So, this past tense, "heard," corresponds to this simple past tense right here on my timeline. So, continuing action interrupted by a simple past tense expression.
One more example then we'll go to the next part. "She had been working for a few hours when her boss requested an update." At native speed, "She'd been working for a few hours when her boss requested an update." So, again, continuing action, "she had been working for a few hours," in this case. "She'd been working for a few hours when her boss requested an update." So, we use these two together, simple past tense and this past perfect with the continuous form, to express the relationship between a continuing action that was interrupted by this past action. So, we show the relationship between those two with grammar patterns with sentences like these.
So, let's compare this now to point two for this lesson. Point two for this lesson uses "had been" as part of a sentence that shows cause and effect in the past. So, again, to imagine this sort of visually, to look at it on a timeline, we can imagine there was some continuing activity, some past continuing activity, and it created an effect a past effect. So, again, we're looking at everything happening in the past. We're not focusing on the present here. We're talking -- all of this stuff, the effect, the activity is in the past. So, a couple points about this use. First, this implies that the continuing action stopped. So, when you use this as we'll see in just a moment with the example sentences, this implies which means we don't say it directly but it means that this continuing action is done, it's finished. We want to talk about it. It was continuing at some point, but now it is finished. And the other point here, we use this simple past tense to past perfect continuous as we'll see down here. So, let's take a look at a couple of examples.
First, "My mother was furious because she had been waiting for us for two hours." "My mother was furious," that's my simple past tense statement like I said here. "My mother was furious because," so here is where I'm showing the cause-and-effect relationship, "she had been waiting for us for two hours," she had been waiting for us for two hours. So, here is the activity, "she had been waiting for two hours," and the effect, "my mother was furious." So, again, this part the effect is also expressed using simple past tense. But, here, we're not communicating like an interruption as we did with point one. We're communicating this cause-and-effect relationship.
Another example, "We were exhausted because we had been hiking all day." "We were exhausted because we'd been hiking all day." Again, here's my effect, "we were exhausted." That's my effect here, simple past tense. "Because," so here's my word that shows the relationship between these ideas, "we'd been hiking all day." "We'd been hiking," so this means this activity "hiking" continued all day. And, this is the effect, "exhausted."
Final example, "I was ecstatic because I got some good news I had been waiting for for months." So, this is kind of a long sentence. "I was ecstatic" is the effect. "Ecstatic" means very, very happy, like energetic. You're so, so happy about something. "Because I got some good news," okay. So, this part is past, yes. Here, "I had been waiting for…" "I got some good news I had been waiting for for months." So, this part right here is the continuing past action. The speaker was waiting for a very long time. So, "I got some good news I had been waiting for for months." You'll notice here there's two "fors," that's correct. So, "I had been waiting for," "to wait for something" is like a set phrase. "I had been waiting for something," or "I was waiting for," noun phrase. Here, I'm using "for months," "I've been waiting for for months." So, you might see this double "for" here and there. But, this is the reason there are two of them, for months, or for days, or for years. You could replace the time period there.
So, we use this "had been," plus some kind of usually you'll notice there's like an emotional effect here. So, you might see something like that it's common to see an emotional effect, a feeling-related effect here. So, this is another use of "had been." And, again, we're using the continuous tense here to describe this continuing past action.
Okay. So, finally, let's go to point three for this lesson. Point three, we use "had been" as part of a sentence that makes the sequence of past actions clear. So, this comes from just the grammar point, the past perfect grammar point in general. On a timeline like this, if you have two actions that both happened in the past, like action one and action two, and they're in the same sentence, use past perfect to talk about the earlier action, and use simple past tense to talk about the more recent action. That's what this says here. So, again, if two past complete actions are in the same sentence, use past perfect which is "had been." For today's lesson, we're going to focus on "had been." "Had been," plus past participle verb for the earlier action, and simple past for the more recent action. So, again today, I'm focusing on "had been," using "had been" in these sentence structures. But, you'll see just other past perfect structures as well.
So, let's take a look at some examples. These get a little bit long and there are some key points to talk about. First, "By the time I got to the kitchen this morning, breakfast had been prepared." So, "by the time I got," so to get somewhere means to arrive somewhere. "By the time I got to the kitchen this morning," so this is my simple past tense expression, "breakfast had already been prepared." So, I have already here in parentheses, you may hear it. I feel it would be very natural to put "already" in this sentence to express that something that was expected, was completed. So, this sentence means breakfast was prepared first, and then the speaker arrived in the kitchen. But, when we're telling stories and we're talking about the relationships, like the time relationships between activities, it sounds very natural to put everything together like this. "By the time I got to the kitchen this morning, breakfast had already been prepared."
Another example, "When I went to get my lunch from the office break room, I saw that it had been eaten." "When I went to get my lunch from the office break room, I saw that it had been eaten." So, you'll notice this one, "when I went to the office break room," here's an action, "I saw," so this verb is also in simple past tense because it's like these two things are happening at the same time. "I went to the office break room and I saw my lunch had been eaten," that happened before I went to the break room and I looked for my lunch. So, when the two actions are -- when these two actions are closely related, use simple past tense. They're happening at like the same time. But, this action, "my lunch had been eaten," that's the key past action here. So, that should take a past perfect structure.
One more example, "I tried to take care of the bill at a special company dinner, but when I gave my credit card to the staff, they told me the bill had been paid." So, there's a lot of information here. The speaker is expressing they wanted to pay the bill. So, "I tried to take care of the bill," to take care of the bill as another way to say to pay something. "I tried to take care of the bill at a special company dinner, but when I gave my credit card to the staff, they told me the bill had been paid." So, again, these things, giving the credit card to the staff and receiving the information, happened at about the same time. The bill being paid happened before this situation. So, we use this past perfect to describe that. You'll also notice these are passive structures, "the bill had been paid," "my lunch had been eaten," "breakfast had been prepared." So, you might see that very commonly with this structure as well.
So, these are three different ways that you can use "had been" to talk about these relationships between past actions, past activities. Thanks very much for watching this lesson, and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye.

Comments

Hide