Uhhh, that's one of my struggles when I speak English. hehe, In English, have pp can be used in many ways like you said. However, unfortunately, in Korean, I believe there is no expression equivalent to "Have pp" The reason why you keep getting corrected when you using "~하고있었다" is that meaning is "was doing". For instance, if you say "난 요즘에 공부를 많이 하고 있었다", the meaning is a little bit different from what you want to say. It means more like "I had been studying a lot these days" not "I have been studying a lot these days." "I have been studying a lot these days." "전 요즘에 공부를 많이 하고있어요" -formal "난 요즘에 공부를 많이 하고있어" -informal "I have been tired all morning." "아침내내 피곤하네요" -formal "아침내내 피곤하다" -informal "What have you been up to?" (What have you been doing?) "요즘에 뭐하고 지내셨어요?" -formal "요즘에 뭐하고 지냈어?" -informal Well, I'm not a korean language expert, so only thing I can do is some translations for you. This person will help you ! | | V

Yeah, 하고 있었다 would essentially be "had been Ving". Because you're using the past tense, showing the action no longer continues to the present.

I'm also studying Korean and I love when grammar issues like this pop up. You obviously got a great answer below, but I just wanted to add this. In all of your examples, the thing you have been doing is still going on, it never stopped, so it's still a present action. So 하고 있다 is the proper expression to use. It's the present progressive.