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Explanation: As mentioned in the discussion box, I think this is far more natural, along with my other suggestions there.
"had been playing ... when he was 8" sounds as though he'd been playing on the stroke of midnight of his 8th birthday, or that he'd been playing the entire year.
There are several ways of tackling it, but I think the combination of "already", the past perfect continuous tense, and "when" has to be avoided.
Imo the actual context is not clear enough (ie where is this coming from/ leading to?) and supposing what the intended meaning is doesn't do it for me. So line me up behind Victoria.
I tend to agree with you. In effect, you're saying that 'Tom was already playing (already played) the piano at ....' would be the best to imply what we thing the writer wanted to imply, right?
If you say "since he was eight years old" or "since before he was eight years old", the tense ("had been playing") is suitable, but you're making a quite different statement. There is nothing in the sentence proposed to indicate that the speaker wishes to say how long Tom had been playing the piano at the theatre. On the contrary, "already" indicates that this is not what the speaker wishes to express.
On Tony's point, I don't think the use of simple vs. continuous tense is the crucial point here. The implication (with "already") is that Tom was a prodigy, and to me the continuous tense tends to emphasise that, so I find it suitable here. The point (in my view) is that the past perfect, whether simple or continuous, is almost certainly not the right tense.
(in her positive reaction to Sheila's), who wrote, "Tom had been playing the piano at his father's theatre since he was 8 years old." "since" indicates a starting point, can only be used with Pres.Perf. outside of indirect reporting, while the original intention seems to be that Tom had already played before that age, so this solution would be wrong.
On the other hand, if we put it this way, "Tom had been playing the piano at his father's theatre since before he was 8 years old," we'd have a possible solution.
...this may have been written by a non-native speaker of EN, who had a slightly shaky idea of when to use a continuous tense or not! I believe it would actually have worked fine if they'd simply written 'Tom had already played the piano...' — and so it's not so surprising that he is still playing it now. If we start off from that premise, then we can see how someone might think "Oh, he didn't play it on just one occasion, so it must be 'been playing'." — but that's a false notion, since the simple tense often implies a habitual activity: "I read every evening. This evening I am reading Tolstoy." So 'played the piano' here can easily mean 'was in the habit of playing the piano' or 'used to play the piano'.
is usually only used with a period of time indicated, so the original would have to look like 'Tom had already been playing the piano for 1 year or so/a while at his father's theatre when he was 8 years old.' Actually, all E teaching material draws our attention to it and I feel it natural only that way. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Reading through my respected colleagues' contributions, I find I can't fully agree or disagree with them without knowing what the precise situation is. While others are right that "was already playing" is almost certainly more natural, the choice of a past tense in English is so dependent on the speaker (/author)'s perception of a statement's relation to other events that only the full context can allow us to give a full answer.
You could devise a context in which "had already been playing" would be natural, or at least acceptable. There would need to be something before this that establishes a later past time, so that what he did when he was 8 is seen in relation to that later past time. For example:
"Tom became a full-time professional at the age of 12. He had already been playing [...] when he was 8 years old."
If there is nothing of that kind, it should definitely be "was already playing". And even if there is, as in my invented example, "was already playing" would be possible, and arguably more natural. "Had already been playing" is unlikely to be used unless you are saying how long he had been playing for.
Copy-editing is what I do most of nowadays and I sometimes spend several minutes looking at just a few words, knowing that I want to change them but not being sure why, nor what change to make. Is it just my preference, or is there something actually wrong with it? Hopefully the client won't query it :).
If the sentence is to start "Tom had already been playing the piano..." I would want it to continue "for x years" (except I would have started the sentence with "By the time he was 8 years" - oh dear - the joys of copyediting!!
He'd already been playing for (period of time) when he was ... (although before would be better than when) He was already playing when he was ... (unknown when he started) He'd been playing since before he was ... (I don't think the already really fits there)
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Answers
7 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +3
the sentence is correct
Explanation: he had started playing piano before being 8 years old In other words, sth (starting playing piano) is happend before sth else (being 8 years old)
Niayesh Omidi Local time: 16:32 Native speaker of: Persian (Farsi)
peer agreement (net): +3
