Thursday, January 30, 2020

past tense - Present perfect simple for an unfinished action



I decided to walk back home. I had walked for about 200 meters when the storm began and I ran to the nearest cafe.



Would it be possible to use past perfect progressive since the walk was not completed?


A worksheet about this issue



Answer



First, what you have in your example is the past perfect (I had walked) not the present perfect (I have walked).


That said, yes, in this case, the past perfect progressive conveys basically the same meaning, and is arguably preferable.




I had been walking about 200 meters...



One small nuance is that in this particular case, the past perfect allows for the possibility that the speaker stopped walking after 200 meters, whereas the past perfect progressive sounds like they were walking at the moment the storm hit.


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