Past continuous vs past perfect continuos

[dilodi83]

a) Henson never thought about retirement. In fact, he was making/had been making a documentary film about the indigenous people of Chile when he died.

b) The couple described how they were eating/had been eating in the dining room.

c) The couple described how they were eating/had been eating in the dining room when the explosion destroyed the hotel.

d) She was breathing hard as if she had been running/had run.

Are all these sentences possible? Are they grammatically correct? Or are there any differences in the meaning?

 

[dilodi83]

PLEASE; COULD YOU HELP ME WITH THIS??

 

[dilodi83]

COULD YOU HELP ME WITH THIS??

 

[TheParser]

a) Henson never thought about retirement. In fact, he was making/had been making a documentary film about the indigenous people of Chile when he died.

b) The couple described how they were eating/had been eating in the dining room.

c) The couple described how they were eating/had been eating in the dining room when the explosion destroyed the hotel.

d) She was breathing hard as if she had been running/had run.

Are all these sentences possible? Are they grammatically correct? Or are there any differences in the meaning?

***** A NON-TEACHER's COMMENT *****


(1) Mr. Raymond Murphy's Grammar in Use gives this useful

information:

When I looked out the window, it had been raining. (= It

wasn't raining when I looked out; it had [already] stopped.)

When I looked out the window, it was raining. (= Rain was [still]

falling at the time I looked out.)

(2) Based on Mr. Murphy's examples, maybe (maybe!!!) we can

see a little difference in your first sentence:

He was making a documentary when he died. (Maybe = He was

actually filming on the day that he died.)

He had been making a documentary when he died. (Maybe = On the

day he died, he had already stopped filming a few days before.)

(3) Study this example from Mr. Swan, who says that we use the

past perfect progressive to talk about longer actions which had

continued up to the past moment, or shortly before it:

"When I found Mary, I could see that she had been crying."

I am 99% confident that the sentence =

I found Mary. She was NOT crying at that moment. But her red

eyes were proof that she had been crying a few minutes before.


And I am 100% confident that "When I found Mary, she was crying"

= I found Mary. At that moment, tears were still coming out of her eyes.


(4) Let's see what other members say.


Respectfully yours,


James

 

[Barb_D]

a) Henson never thought about retirement. In fact, he was making/had been making a documentary film about the indigenous people of Chile when he died.

b) The couple described how they were eating/had been eating in the dining room.

c) The couple described how they were eating/had been eating in the dining room when the explosion destroyed the hotel.

d) She was breathing hard as if she had been running/had run.

Are all these sentences possible? Are they grammatically correct? Or are there any differences in the meaning?

b is incomplete, and the thought is completed with c.

Some people may see a big difference between your two forms in c. I don't. Same idea. I would not assume that their meal was finished when the bomb went off.

In d, only "had been running" works.