Let’s review and practice mixed perfect tenses. As a high intermediate or advanced student, you’ve learned each of these tenses separately and can use them correctly. But in a natural conversation, you’ll want to be able to use all of the tenses together in order to express yourself fluently and with confidence.
We will look at the perfect tenses first. Then we’ll review the perfect conditional tenses. And finally, we’ll put them all together!
Present Perfect, Past Perfect, and Future Perfect
Let’s start with the perfect tenses. There are three of them, the Present Perfect, the Past Perfect, and the Future Perfect.
Work though each of the tenses separately.
1.) Read why we use the tense.
2.) Read how we use it, by looking at the sentence structure and examples.
3.) Think of an affirmative sentence related to your own life. Say that same sentence in its negative and interrogative form. With the Present Perfect, do the process a second time with a 3rd person singular subject.
If you want more information about a tense, click on the button to learn more.
Try the quiz!
Present Perfect Continuous, Past Perfect Continuous, and Future Perfect Continuous
Examine each of these tenses individually.
1.) Read why we use the tense.
2.) Read how we use it, by looking at the sentence structure and examples.
3.) Think of an affirmative sentence related to your own life. Say that same sentence in its negative and interrogative form.
An Important Thing to Know about the Perfect Continuous tenses
Students often ask if they can use the perfect and perfect continuous of forms interchangeably. The short answer is yes, usually. For example, you could say:
I have lived in this house for 8 months. – Present Perfect (emphasis on the action)
I have been living in this house for 8 months. – Present Perfect Continuous (emphasis on the length of time)
You can say:
Theo had had a nap before he went to work. – Past Perfect (Theo’s nap made a difference to something that happened at work.)
Theo had been having a nap before he went to work. – Past Perfect Continuous (Theo was is the process of having a nap when something happened.)
So yes, we can often use the perfect or the imperfect, with small variations in meaning. But remember not to use stative verbs in any of the continuous tenses!
Now let’s look at what we can’t say:
I had had the car for 2 years before it broke down. – Past PerfectI had been having a car for 2 years before it broke down. – Past Perfect Continuous
Why not? Because the verb to have here refers to possession, to owning something. To have, in its basic meaning, is a stative verb. In the previous example, to have is part of the expression to have a nap. We don’t own naps. To have is just collocated (connected with) a nap as a form of speech. It isn’t a stative verb.
If you don’t know about this topic, or want a refresher, feel free to pause this lesson and check it out.
Try the Perfect Continuous tenses quiz!
Let’s put it all together!
Don’t worry if all this grammar feels like a lot. This lesson is about piecing together what you already know and looking at it from another perspective. It’s good if it’s brought up lots of questions for you!
Try the Mixed Perfect Tenses/Perfect Continuous Quiz!
Further Study
Check out Grammar Monster.
