Had you been waiting vs have you been

Question

How long had you been waiting to get the bus?

https://ieltsband7.com/ielts-vocabulary/grammar/past-perfect-continuous-grammar-for-ielts/

In the given context, would it not make sense to use- how long have you been waiting to get the bus?
Thanks

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

JigneshbharatiIn the given context

The given context is an explanation of how to use the past perfect tense.

Jigneshbharatiwould it not make sense to use- how long have you been waiting to get the bus?

This version has the present perfect tense. If you write this as an example in the given context (on that website), it won't make sense to the reader. If you are explaining the past perfect, it makes no sense to give an example of the present perfect.

Somewhat unrelated to this is the possibility that you are restricting your thoughts to one particular situation — the case where you are at the bus stop and you are speaking to someone else there who seems to have been waiting for the bus for some time. In this case the present perfect is appropriate, so you're right about that. You would ask How long have you been waiting to get the bus?

Now instead of limiting your imagination like that, think more broadly and imagine a case where a friend is telling you what once happened to him at a bus stop, maybe last month, maybe last year, quite a long time ago. In that case everything is in the past. Your friend says that he was annoyed that the buses were running late that day — a day when he had to get to a doctor's appointment — and he was almost late. You wonder how long he had to wait for a bus, considering that all the buses were late that day. You ask How long had you been waiting to get the bus?

Sometimes you have to think hard to find a scenario in which an example sentence might be correct and useful.

CJ

Had you been waiting vs have you been

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