Hi Jenny,

Yes, this is quite common when the context is already understood. Essentially if we already have an idea of the past time that we are discussing then we don’t need a simple clause to frame it again, and can keep using past perfect sentences to indicate “before that time”. In your example, the first sentence establishes a past time, “when she was fifteen”, so we could continue a narrative with lots of past perfect sentences that could all be understood to mean before or up to that time, when she was fifteen. This can be tricky to follow as it depends on the context, which will set certain indicators that make the past perfect possible.

It can also be confusing because it can also work the other way around; we might not necessarily keep using the past perfect consistently this way, and might start using the past simple again once it is established that all the sentences are referring to a certain time. It really does depend a bit!

But I hope this helps.

Phil

Hi Yulia,

Absolutely, yes you can use the perfect continuous there in the same way we would consider the difference between the past simple and past continuous, most often it would be if we want to show an action was interrupted, as you say, or if we want to emphasise the process.

Phil

Hi Phil,
Can we use past perfect continuous as well in the sentence: We chatted for hours before I realised we had been in the same class at school? – We had been chatting…
Or in storytelling we alway use past perfect, not past perfect continuous?
I mean, when i want to show that one action was in progress before a second action started in this sentence?

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