What does that mean?

Does it mean I've been trying to film, but now I've given up?

Or does it mean that I've now finished filming?

Today, we're talking about the present perfect continuous tense, which we use to talk about an activity that is ongoing.

But how does it work?

The present perfect continuous tense is created using four words in the correct order at the beginning of a sentence.

I have been playing the piano all morning. 

First of all, we have the subject, so in this case, "I".

Then, we use "have" or "has", depending on the subject. 

Next is the word "been". 

This is the part that shows the activity is ongoing and it doesn't change no matter what the subject or the verb is. 

And finally, we have the main verb, with an "-ing" ending. 

I have been playing.

And then you can finish off the sentence, including details of the activity and how long it has been going on for, usually by adding the subject and then a time phrase.

I have been playing the piano all morning.

Here's a pro tip: If you want to sound more like a native speaker, you can get a little bit lazy. 

We'll often use a contraction of the subject and "has" or "have", which means we shorten it to one word.

"I have" becomes "I've", "you have" becomes "you've", "they have" becomes "they've".

"He has" becomes "he's", and "she has" becomes "she's".

Oh! "Anna has" becomes "Anna's". 

Anna's been teaching English all morning.

Now, let's talk about those time phrases.

What's the difference between the word "for" and the word "since"?

This is a very common mistake with non-native English speakers, so let's go through this carefully.

The word "for" is used when you are talking about an amount of time.

Duration.

For example, "She practiced the dance for two hours."

Or "I've been at the bus stop for half an hour."

The word "since" is used when you want to say the start time.

For example, "I've been here since six o'clock." or "I've lived in this house since 2011."

If you want to be less specific, you could say "for a while".

I've been thinking about it for a while.

This usually means "quite a long time", but it's not a specific amount of time.

If you want to say you've not been doing something for a long time, but without being too specific, you could say "for a little while".

Anna, I'm sorry I'm late. Have you been waiting long?

Only a little while.

Another time phrase you can use is "all", and then a longer time period.

For example, "I've  been here all week." or "I've been trying to call you all month."

Again, this comes from native speakers being lazy.

It actually means "for all of the".

So, rather than saying, "I've been trying to find you for all of the day," a native speaker would simply say, "I've been trying to find you all day."

So now, I'm going to say five sentences, leaving a space for the word "for" or "since".  

I'll pause for a few seconds between each one to let you think about your answer.

Ok, are we ready?

Number one: I've been playing tennis ____ last year.

And the answer is, "since". I've been  playing tennis since last year. 

Number two: He's been talking about it ___ weeks.

And the answer is, "for". He's been talking about it for weeks.

Next question.

Number three: They've been driving ____ hours.

The answer is, "for". They've been driving for hours. 

Question four: I've been dancing _____ I was 6 years old.

The answer is, "since". I've been dancing since I was 6 years old. 

And the final question: She's been annoying me ____ all morning.

I'm sorry. That was a trick question.

We don't use "for" or "since" when we say "all morning", so the full sentence is: She's been annoying me all morning.

What was your score out of five? Let me know in the comments section below.

Oh, and I noticed that a lot of you don't have your notifications turned on, so if I do a live lesson, how will you know about it?

Guys, turn on your notifications, and don't forget, my regular lessons come out on Mondays and Fridays, so be sure to catch up.

Until next time, you could watch one of these lessons. See you soon. Bye.