2014年4月19日 · The well had been producing clean water. The well was producing clean water. The first sentence implies that the well still is producing water, but it's no longer clean for some …

2016年5月1日 · The "when I got married" part identifies a specific time in the past, and the "had been studying for 8 years" says that the studying was still going on at another time that is also …

2013年2月18日 · Here are three takes on the origin of "have been had" in the sense of "have been cheated." Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Fifth Edition, …

To me, "had been" implies a change of state: The phone rang. I was asleep. (No implication of state change. Further sentences would clarify if the speaker woke up, or never heard it.) The …

2020年6月15日 · "If I had been you I would have done that -- but I was not you so I did not do that (not being you at the time, it was impossible for me to do that)" As you can see: "I was not …

2014年8月23日 · Both are subjunctive; the first is past (or were) subjunctive and could be described, in ESL terms, as second conditional, which states a present counterfactual as …

There's no special magic with "had had", they don't really go together as a pair anymore than "had wanted" go together. So don't worry so much about how to use "had had" as a unit of …

The standard paradigm for what has been called here the "third conditional" is a counterfactual statement about two past events: "If I had studied, I would have passed the test." That …

What is the correct word order between have/had, been, and already in statements like the following: By the time the product was officially announced, I had already been using it. Or: By …

"The couple had been engaged since the summer," her spokeswoman said in a statement, "but now they have ended the relationship." edit: I believe this is referred to as the Past Perfect …