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Welcome to this class on the past perfect
continuous tense, which is also called the
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past perfect progressive tense. Now, this
class is part of a series created by www.engvid.com
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to help you use the different English verb
tenses and to communicate more effectively
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in English, okay? Now, this tense is an advanced
tense, and we use it to talk about the past
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in a lot of interesting ways, and you'll see
what they are. But most of all, you can learn
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it easily and naturally, and I think you will
be using it that way by the end of this class.
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So, are you ready? Let's get started.
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So, the past perfect continuous tense, which
is what I'm going to call it. Every time,
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I'm not going to say both names, okay? I'll
just say one name. So, the past perfect continuous
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tense is used to talk about something that
started in the past and continued in the past,
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but everything is in the past. You also know
that because it has the word "past" in it,
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so it's about the past, and it has the word
"continuous" in it, which mean something continued,
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right? So, that's a big clue. But let's understand
it a little bit better by looking at some
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examples.
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So, we can use this tense to talk about something
that had been happening in the past. For example,
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let's look at the timeline. This is now, and
this is the past. So, if I talk about this
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period, from the first X to the second X,
I could say, "I had been" - during, sorry,
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during that period, "I had been living in
Florida", right? During this period, from
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this time to this time, everything in the
past, I had been living in Florida.
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Or, I can also use it to describe something
that had been happening and then something
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else happened. For example, I could say, "I
had been living in Florida before I moved
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to California". So, let's say that at this
point, I moved to California, right? But before
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that, I had been living in Florida. Okay?
And there is a reason, which you will understand
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as we go forward, why we're using that continuous
form, alright? So, that's some basic idea
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of how it's being used.
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Now, let's look at the structure a little
bit. So basically, we take the subject, I,
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You, We, They, He, She, or It, we add "had
been" and then we take the verb and add -ing.
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We use the continuous form. For example, "I
had been living Florida." "I had been working
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hard in Florida." "I had been saving a lot
of money." Why? Because I was planning to
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move to California, okay? So, you could use
all of these. I had been living, I had been
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working hard, I had been saving, okay? So,
this is the past perfect continuous tense.
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Now, let's look at when we use the past perfect
continuous tense. So, we can use it to talk
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about a past activity that had been happening,
okay? Just that, that's one way. For example,
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we could say: It had been snowing all week.
We're just saying that this activity that
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started in the past continued in the past,
and which part is the past perfect continuous?
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Here, "It had been snowing" all week, alright?
We can use it like that.
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Now, another way. We can use it to describe
an activity in the past that had been happening
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before another activity happened. So, another
activity happened and our past perfect continuous
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activity had been happening, okay? It had
been happening before another activity happened.
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So, let's look at the example: We had been
playing golf before it started to rain. So,
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this part, "had been playing", is our past
perfect continuous tense. So, we had been
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playing, and then it started to rain. "Started"
is not past perfect continuous, that's just
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past simple. But this part show us that this
activity had been happening until this one
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happened. Alright.
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We can also use this tense to talk about a
past activity or action that had been happening
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and we want to say the duration, or how long
it had been happening. For example: They had
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been working on that project for six months.
Or: They had been working on that project
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since January. Okay? So, "had been working",
this is our past perfect continuous, and how
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do we know the duration or how long? With
these key words, which are often used with
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this tense. They had been working on that
project for six months, or the other word.
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They had been working on that project since
January. These are very common words that
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you will see being used with this tense. Alright.
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Next, we can use it to describe activities
that had been happening in the past, and they
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had some kind of pattern or routine. For example:
We had been going to the gym regularly. Okay?
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So here, "had been going". Maybe people are
telling you that because they want to tell
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you we had been going to the gym regularly
before it closed. Now, we have to find a new
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gym. Okay? So, that's one way to describe
some sort of a regular pattern that had been
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going on in the past. Okay? Are you with me?
You've got it.
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Next, we can also use it to describe an activity
that had been happening, plus the reason or
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cause for that. For example, we can connect
it to a cause. We could say: She was tired
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- why? - because she had been studying all
night. So, this "had been studying", right,
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this is our tense. But we say - we're connecting
it to cause. She was tired because she had
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been studying. She was exhausted because she
had been studying. She was sleepy because
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she had been studying. Okay? So sometimes,
this tense is used to give us a cause or sometimes
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it can be a result. Alright?
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And what's really important is not just when
to use it, which is what we looked at so far,
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but also when not to use it. So, as in many
of our continuous verbs, we cannot use some
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stative verbs with this tense. With some continuous
tenses, you cannot use any of the stative
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verbs, or only in a particular way. In this
case, we can't use some of them or most of
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them with this tense. Now, what is a stative
verb? Remember in English, there are two kinds
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of verbs. There are the action verbs like
run, eat, jump. And there are the stative
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verbs, which describe a state or a condition.
For example, they could be mental states.
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I believe, I know, I understand. Or emotional
states, like I love, I hate, I like, I dislike.
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These are examples of stative verbs, and you
will see a long list in any grammar book or
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if you check online, and with these stative
verbs, we should not be using these verbs
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in the past perfect continuous tense, alright?
So, this is when to use the tense and also
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when not to use it.
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Now, let's look at the structure of the past
perfect continuous tense. So, I've divided
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the board into three parts for a positive
sentence, a negative sentence, and a question.
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So, let's start with the first one. In a positive
sentence, what we basically do is we take
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the subject + "had been" + the verb + -ing.
Let's look at an example. So, we take the
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subject, subject could be one of these: I,
You, We, They, He, She, or It. Then we add
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"had been", then we add the verb, in this
case, "work", + -ing. Okay? So, say it after
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me: I had been working. You had been working.
We had been working. They had been working.
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He had been working. She had been working,
and It had been working. Okay? Good. So, you've
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just used this tense, good for you!
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Next, let's look at what happens when we want
to make a negative sentence, then basically
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we're adding the word "not", okay? This is
the only change here, so we could say, "I
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had not been working", that's completely correct,
but it's a little more formal, alright? So,
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in regular conversation, we would probably
say, "I hadn't been working". "Hadn't" is
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the contraction or the short form of the two
words "had" + "not". So basically, we cancelled
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this o, we added an apostrophe and we shortened
it, okay? We'll be looking more at contractions
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in a few minutes. So: I hadn't been working.
You hadn't been working. We hadn't been working.
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The same thing, okay? They hadn't been working.
He hadn't been working. She hadn't been working.
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It hadn't been working. It meaning maybe the
computer or the phone or something else, okay?
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Next, how do we form a question? Well, we
have to change the order around a little bit.
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So, we start with "had" and then the subject,
and then "been" + the verb + -ing. So, we
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could say, "Had you been working at that time?"
Had they been working? Had she been working?
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Okay? So, just change the order, alright,
instead of "had been", we have to say "had",
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plus the subject, and then "been", okay? So
also remember, you can add question words,
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right? Who, what, when, where, why, how, these
are our question words, generally.
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So, if you need to add a question word before
that, then keep this same structure and just
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put this first. So, for example, you could
say: Where - sorry, where had you been working?
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Alright? Why had you been working? How long
had you been working? Alright? So, if you're
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going to use one of those question words,
put it just before, and then continue with
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the same structure. And that's basically how
you form sentences and questions in the past
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perfect continuous tense.
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Now, let's look at how we form contractions
using the past perfect continuous tense. So
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basically, contractions, which are those shortened
forms like, instead of "I had not", we say
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"I hadn't", and so on. We use these more in
conversation and informal writing. We do not
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use them so much in formal business writing
or academic writing, okay? So, keep that in
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mind as we learn these.
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So, let's take an example, first, of the positive
sentence. That can also be shortened or contracted.
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Let's look at how. So, "I had been calling",
this is the full form. The short part of that,
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the contraction would be, "I'd been". So,
how did we get this "I'd"? We basically took
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"I had" and we cancelled the part of it and
added an apostrophe in place of where we removed
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or took out some letters. So, "I had been"
becomes "I'd been". Now, when you contract
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it like that, it's also very important to
pronounce it correctly, because if you don't
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and if we don't hear that "d" sound at the
end, then somebody else might think that your
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grammar is incorrect, okay? So that's why
we're going to also practice the pronunciation
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after we look at the form and spelling of
the contraction.
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So, for the positive form, "I had been" becomes
"I'd been". For the negative form, "I had
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not been calling", that becomes "I hadn't
been", as we saw earlier. So, "I hadn't",
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right? So, what happened? We took "had not",
we got rid of the o here, we added an apostrophe
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and we joined these two words. So, "I had
not been" becomes "I hadn't been". Again,
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it's important to say the endings of these
words.
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So now, let's practice pronouncing this tense
with lots of different variations and different
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verbs, okay? So, you will feel so much more
comfortable actually saying it and using it
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once we reach the end of it here. So, repeat
after me, and try to pay attention to each
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sound: I'd been calling. You'd been writing.
We'd been cooking. They'd been watching. He'd
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been studying. And, she'd been reading. So,
we want to hear that "d" sound at the end,
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she'd, okay?
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Now, I didn't put "It". Sometimes, you will
hear people saying that, "It'd been a long
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time", but it's a little bit tricky to say,
and so if it's not clear, sometimes it's better
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to kind of avoid it and just say "It had been"
from your side, but you can understand and
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you should know that people might use that
form. It's actually used a lot more in the
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negative form, but let's look at some basic
negative forms first.
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So, repeat after me again: I hadn't been checking.
You hadn't been playing. We hadn't been talking.
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They hadn't been going. He hadn't been attending.
And the last one: She hadn't been listening.
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Not like you, you were listening, okay? So,
this is how we contract and pronounce these
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contractions in the past perfect continuous
tense.
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Now, let's look at some spelling changes we
need to make when using this tense. So, these
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changes are made in the base form of the verb,
when we add the -ing, sometimes we need to
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change the spelling. So, let's look at what
those changes are.
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So, for most verbs, we just need to add -ing.
For example, "help" becomes "helping". Dream
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- dreaming. Right? All we did is we added
-ing, and that will be the case for most verbs,
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but not all verbs, okay? So, sometimes, for
verbs ending in e, there what we do is we
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have to drop the e, right, cancel the e and
then add the -ing. For example, the verb "hire",
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so what do we do? We cancel the e and make
it "hiring". What does it mean to hire someone?
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To give someone a job, alright? Or the verb
"make" becomes "making". Again, we got rid
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of this e and we added -ing. Good.
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Now, for verbs that end in ie, what we need
to do is to change the ie to a y. Let me show
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you why. So, "die" becomes "dying". So, we
need to cancel this, right? Cancel the ie
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and change it to a y and then add -ing. Alright?
So, "die" becomes "dying". "Tie" becomes "tying".
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Good.
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And then, in some cases, for verbs ending
in c-v-c, what do I mean by that? Consonant,
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vowel, consonant. So then, we need to double
the last letter. Let me show you what I mean.
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You look at the verb, let's take this verb
"swim". You look at the verb from the end.
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So, we see consonant, vowel, consonant. Remember,
a vowel is A, E, I, O, or U, and all the other
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letters in English are consonants. So, if
you see this pattern, not all the time but
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most of the time, if you look at the verb
from the end and you see consonant, vowel,
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consonant, then we need to, very often, double
that last letter. So, "swim" becomes "swimming".
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"Control", see here? C-v-c, right, looking
this way? "Control" becomes "controlling",
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alright?
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00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:26,610
So, these are the basic changes that you need
to keep in mind. Of course, English as a lot
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of variations in spelling and sometimes, you're
going to have several exceptions, which you
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will pick up as you go along.
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Now, let's look at how to give a short, easy
answer when someone asks you a question using
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this tense. So, suppose someone says, "Had
he been waiting for a long time?" So, this
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is the past perfect continuous tense, right?
But instead of repeating everything again,
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we can just say, "Yes, he had", or "No, he
hadn't". Let's go over that again. Someone
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asks, "Had he been waiting for a long time?"
So, you say, "Yes, he had". You take that
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from here, from the question itself, the question
begins with "had", and your answer will include
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some form of "had". So, "Had he been waiting?"
"Yes, he had", or "No, he hadn't". Alright?
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Now, what's important here, we do use the
contraction, but in this one, in the short
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answer, in the positive short answer, we do
not use a contraction. You cannot use a contraction.
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So, in other words, you can't say "Yes, he'd."
That's not possible, okay? You have to say,
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"Yes, he had" or "No, he hadn't." Good.
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Let's look at another one: Had you been considering
that offer? Let's say this was a job offer
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or something else, okay? Had you been considering
that offer? What does "considering" mean?
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Thinking about it, okay? Alright. So, again,
it starts with "had", so your answer will
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include some form of "had". So, "Had you been
considering it?" "Yes, I had", or "No, I hadn't".
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Again, no contraction possible in the positive
answer.
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Next: Had they been planning a trip? What
can you say? "Yes, they had", or "No, they
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hadn't". Okay? Again, no contraction possible
in that positive response. Okay? And this
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is usually in conversational English. We use
a lot of these short answers because it saves
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time and you don't need to repeat the entire
information that was in the question, okay?
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So, if I asked you, for example, "Had you
been planning to study this tense today?"
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You could say either one of these. Yes, I
had, or No, I hadn't, but I'm so glad I did!
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Okay.
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Now, let's do some practice together using
the past perfect continuous tense. So, we'll
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make some positive sentences, some negative
sentences, and some questions, okay?
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So, let's start with number one: I __________
(think) of ordering pizza. So, I've given
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you the verb. Now, we're going to change that
into the past perfect continuous. So, I, what?
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The verb is "think", then we have to say "I
had been thinking", right? I had been thinking
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of ordering pizza. Okay? Good. Now here, I
wrote the full form. We might not always use
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the full form. We could also use the contraction.
Alright.
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Number two: He ___________ (hope) to get a
promotion. What is a promotion? It means a
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higher position at work, okay, in your job.
So, how would we change that into the past
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perfect continuous? He - yes, "had been hoping".
Now, let's contract it. So then, we would
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say, "He'd been hoping", right? He had been
hoping, or he'd, he'd been hoping to get a
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promotion, alright? You can say that too,
and definitely in more informal conversation.
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Alright.
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Number three: They __________ (look) for the
key. This time, let's say the full form, not
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the contraction. "They had been" - what? "Look"
becomes "looking", right? They had been looking
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for the key, good. There is a g here, okay?
Remember that. Good.
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Number four: She ___________ (miss) her family.
This time, let's shorten it. So, what would
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it be? "She'd been missing her family." Okay?
Very good.
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Number five: Jose ___________ (prepare) for
his exam. Let's use the full form. "Jose had
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been preparing for his exam." Okay? You've
got it, very good! Alright.
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Now, let's make them negative. He __________
(exercise) regularly. So, we want to say he
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didn't do that. So, how can we say that? "He
hadn't been exercising regularly", okay? He
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had not been exercising regularly, or he hadn't
been exercising regularly. Good. That's the
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basic format. Let's apply it now.
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Number seven: We _________ (check) our voicemail.
Make it negative. "We hadn't been checking
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our voicemail." We hadn't been checking our
voicemail. Alright?
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Number eight: I __________ (sleep) well. Make
it negative and past perfect continuous. "I
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hadn't been sleeping well." I hadn't been
sleeping well. Okay? Excellent.
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Now, for the last two, we're going to make
them into questions. Are you ready?
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Had _________ (he, feel) unwell? So, what
would we say, in what order? "Had he been
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feeling unwell? Had he been feeling unwell?
Okay? Good.
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And the last one: Had __________ (you, text)
each other? "Text" today is very much used
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as a verb, so how would we change that? "Had
you been texting each other?" Okay? Had you
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been texting each other? Okay?
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That's it, now you've practiced some positive
sentences, some negative sentences, some questions,
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and I hope you're feeling a lot more confident
about using this tense correctly and easily.
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Now, let's look at some common mistakes that
are sometimes made when using the past perfect
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continuous tense, and let's see how we can
fix them.
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So, the first mistake that's sometimes made
is that the wrong tense is actually used or
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chosen. So, let me give you a situation. Suppose
John was looking for a job and then he found
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one, okay? So, how would we convey that information
in English? Which tense would we use? I'll
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read two of the possibilities to you. "John
has been looking for a job", or "John had
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been looking for a job". Think about it for
a second. So, in this case, the correct answer
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is the second one, which is in fact, our tense,
the past perfect continuous. "Had been looking".
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Why? Because this describes a situation where
John was doing something, it continued for
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some time and then it stopped, because he
found a job. So, we can use correctly the
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past perfect continuous. John had been looking
for a job in the past. He started looking,
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he was looking and looking and looking, and
then he stopped because he found a job, right?
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So, that is the perfect use of our tense that
we've been learning. But sometimes, by mistake,
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students mix that up with another tense, which
is this one: John has been looking for a job.
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Do you remember which tense that is? That's
the present perfect continuous tense. So,
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"John has been looking for a job" means what?
It means that he started looking and he's
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still looking. But that's not the situation
here, right? John found one, so he finished
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looking. So, this was the correct choice here,
but sometimes, students confuse the present
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perfect continuous with the past perfect continuous.
So, make sure that you understand these two
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tenses clearly, understand the differences,
and that you choose the past perfect continuous
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at the right time, okay.
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The next mistake with this tense is the use
of the stative verb. As I mentioned, very
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often and most of the time, we do not use
stative verbs with this tense. For example,
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these are all wrong, by the way, okay? Most
of these things here are wrong, so let's look
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at what's wrong with them. "They had been
knowing each other for many years." What's
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wrong with that? It's the fact that a stative
verb is being used. Which stative verb? The
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verb "know". Okay? We cannot use that in the
continuous form. So, we would have to not
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use this tense. There is no way we can continue
to use the past perfect continuous with this
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verb. You just can't use it, because there
is no way to correctly say "knowing each other"
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as a verb. So here, we would have to say,
"They had", for example, "known", they had
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known each other for many years, which is
just the past perfect and not the past perfect
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continuous, alright? So, if you have a stative
verb to use in this kind of context of a past
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action, you're probably going to have to switch
back to the past perfect tense and not the
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continuous one. Alright?
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Next, spelling mistakes. These are quite common.
Let's look at the first one: She had'nt been
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attending classes." So, look carefully at
the board and tell me, where's the spelling
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mistake? I'll give you a clue: it's in the
contraction. Here, right? So, the apostrophe
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is in the wrong place. It should be, "She
hadn't" "hadn't been attending", and the apostrophe
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should be where the o was removed and not
here, okay? Alright.
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The next one, also a spelling mistake: The
traffic hadn't been moveing. What's wrong
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there? This time, the contraction is okay,
but the verb itself is wrong when we add -ing.
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Why? Do you remember the rule? We had some
of these examples in our practice, in fact.
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So, how do we fix it? We cancel this e, alright?
So, when the base form of the verb ends with
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an e, like the verb "move", we cancel the
e and we add -ing. So, the correct spelling
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would be "moving", okay? Without the e. The
traffic hadn't been moving, it was stuck.
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Alright.
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The next one, also a spelling mistake: They
had been chating. That's what the person wanted
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to say. They had been chatting for a long
time, or they had been chatting for an hour,
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but the spelling says "chating" right now,
and that's incorrect, because let's look at
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our base verb, okay, "chat". So, we have consonant,
vowel, consonant, and that means that, in
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this case, we double the last letter. And
did the student do that? No, okay? So, let's
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fix it. "They had been chatting." Okay? They
had been chatting for a long time, or chatting.
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That's another way to pronounce it, okay?
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Next, sometimes a lot of mistakes are made
with these words, "since" and "for". Let's
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look at a mistake right now: The police had
been looking for him since two months. So,
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that is completely wrong. You don't want to
make that mistake, not in an exam, not while
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00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:51,180
speaking, not while writing a business letter,
in all situations, okay? Because this not
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a good mistake to make, it's pretty basic
mistake. So, we should say, in this case,
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"The police had been looking for him for two
months." Why? Because we use "for" + the period
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of time. And we use "since" + a point in time.
Okay? So, we could say, "since January 15th"
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or "since January", but "for two months",
"for six months", like that, okay?
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So, these are some of the common mistakes
to avoid when using this tense.
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So, to review now. You know the past perfect
continuous tense when you know when to use
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it, when not to use it, and how to use it,
all of which we have covered in this class.
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And of course, you can go back, you can watch
any particular area that you want to review,
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and that's always a good idea, okay? But what
does it mean to actually know how to use it?
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It means to be able to make a positive sentence,
a negative sentence, and a question, right?
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For example: They had been learning English.
The negative: They hadn't been learning English.
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The question: Had they been learning English?
Alright?
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And also, you should be able to add those
question words when necessary, before the
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question. For example: Where had they been
learning English? How long had they been learning
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English? Why had they been learning English?
Okay? So, when you can do that comfortably
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and move between positive, negative, questions,
then you've got it.
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And if you have reached this stage and you
are learning the past perfect continuous tense
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and you watched this class all the way through,
I know that you are a serious learner and
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you are someone who achieves your goals in
life. I have been teaching for thirty years,
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and I know that people who make it to this
stage are winners, and you are one of them!
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Congratulations, really!
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Now, when you're ready, remember this is a
series, so go on to watch the next video in
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the series so that you can continue to improve.
And if you'd like to do some more practice,
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then you can do a quiz on www.engvid.com . Thanks
very much for watching, and all the best with
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your English.35993
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