The concept is the same as present perfect continuous.\u00a0 The action happens before a time in the past.<\/p>\n
When I arrived at the bus stop, the other people had been waiting for twenty minutes.<\/p>\n
Did the action continue or not?\u00a0 Depends on context.<\/p>\n
When I left the house, they had been playing for five hours. Who knows when they stopped.<\/p>\n
When I started at the shop, my boss had been working there for five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The concept is the same as present perfect continuous.\u00a0 The action happens before a time in the past. When I arrived at the bus stop, the other people had been waiting for twenty minutes. Did the action continue or not?\u00a0 Depends on context. When I left the house, they had been playing for five hours. … <\/p>\n