[Grammar] Had been or have been

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alifarisyed

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Teacher, Which one of these is correct:
1. I have been once considering settling down in England.
2. I had (I'd) been once considering to settle down in England.
 

sarat_106

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Teacher, Which one of these is correct:
1. I have been once considering settling down in England.
2. I had (I'd) been once considering to settle down in England.

Welcome to the forum. Both the sentences in perfect continuous tense are correct, The verb 'consider' can accept either an inifinitive or a gerund as its direct object without any change in meaning.
 

jamiep

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Teacher, Which one of these is correct:
1. I have been once considering settling down in England.
2. I had (I'd) been once considering to settle down in England.

I had (I'd) once been considering settling down in England.

Meaning, you thought about living in England but not anymore.
 

TheParser

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Teacher, Which one of these is correct:
1. I have been once considering settling down in England.
2. I had (I'd) been once considering to settle down in England.
***NOT A TEACHER***alifarisyed, may I give you my humble opinion? (1) I think that I would choose "I had once been considering settling down in England." By the way, I moved "once," for I think it sounds more "natural" in that position. (2) I think that in regular speech, many Americans would be more comfortable with: I had once thought about settling down in England. Thank you.
 

sarat_106

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***NOT A TEACHER***alifarisyed, may I give you my humble opinion? (1) I think that I would choose "I had once been considering settling down in England." By the way, I moved "once," for I think it sounds more "natural" in that position. (2) I think that in regular speech, many Americans would be more comfortable with: I had once thought about settling down in England. Thank you.

Thank you for correction of the sentence to "I had once been considering settling down in England." by putting the adverb 'once' after 'had' and before 'been' which has escaped my attention. I thought alifarisyed's question basically intended to ascertain the correct use of gerund and inifinitive(settle). However, here I would prefer to use past continuous instead of perfect continuous which does not contain a time period.
"I was once considering settling down in England."
 

euncu

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I think that in regular speech, many Americans would be more comfortable with: I had once thought about settling down in England. Thank you.

This version makes more sense to me, because honestly I'm having some difficulties to associate "once" with any continuous form. Should't we refer to a period of time when we are to use the continuous form?
 
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Barb_D

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Yes, the continuous form doesn't make sense unless you want to talk about something that happened WHILE you were thinking about it.

I had been considering settling down in England when I learned that my horrible college roommate had been elected mayor of the town I had been thinking to move to. That was all I needed to realize that I was better off where I was.

I had once considered settling down in England, but then my daughter presented me with twin grandsons, and I knew I wasn't going to go so far way.

(EDIT: I have no problem with the word "consider" vs. "thought." It's a very natural word to use.)
 
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