In this lesson you will continue learning about how to communicate ideas that refer to the future. Now that you are familiar with future continuous, future perfect and other structures, it is time that you learn a new one. But first, pay attention to the following video:
How Things Will Have Been Changing?
Keep reading to find out more about it.
The facts mentioned in the previous video were expressed in a tense called future perfect continuous, also known as future perfect progressive.
It is important to mention that the future perfect continuous is only applied in very specific situations. For this reason, it is one of the least utilized structures in English and sometimes people find it difficult to understand and use. However, despite not being frequently used, it is necessary to recognize how it is implemented.
The future perfect continuous or future perfect progressive can be used in the following cases:
Now that you know the main functions of the future perfect progressive, it is important to learn the structure of this tense. Pay attention to the following image:
As you can see, the structure of the future perfect continuous is formed by a subject, plus the form will have been, plus a verb ending in -ing. Following are some examples of sentences with this structure.
Future Perfect Continuous Sentences
What do you think? Easy right? Since you have already studied other future tenses, it should be easier for you to understand the future perfect.
Just like in the previous lessons, it is possible to change the main structure of this tense to make negative sentences. Do you remember how to do it?
To use future perfect in negative form, you only need to add the word not after the auxiliary will.
Don’t forget you can also use the contraction won’t instead of will not.
Following are some examples of this tense. Look closely at how the structure is formed.
Now that you are familiar with the two basic structures of future perfect continuous, take a look at how they are used in an everyday context. Pay attention to the following video:
Future Perfect Continuous Conversation
As it was shown in the previous example, Max was describing a process that has already started and is expected to continue in the future. He used future perfect continuous because this tense is perfect for projecting actions forward in time.
Now that you know how to express ideas using the future perfect continuous in the affirmative and negative form, you can continue with the interrogative form. If you remember the past lessons, the process will be quite simple.
As you may have guessed, there are two ways of making questions. You can use a yes/no question or a wh- question depending on your needs. You can see how to make both types of questions below:
As you can see, to build yes/no questions you can use the structure of affirmative sentences as a base, just move the auxiliary will to the beginning of the sentence. To illustrate this change, look at the examples:
However, if you wish to obtain more specific information, you can use the next pattern:
Check the table below for some examples:
What do you think about this topic? If you still feel like you need extra information, watch the video and click on the download button for more details.
Future Time: Perfect Continuous
Now that you learned about the future perfect continuous, put this knowledge into practice by working on some activities.
Start by doing a writing exercise.
Do you remember the video at the beginning of this lesson? Aside from The Simpsons, what other shows do you think will have been appearing on TV for a long time in the future?
Instructions: Write at least eight sentences to express your opinion. Use the affirmative, negative and interrogative form of the future perfect continuous.
Instructions: Listen to the following audio and identify the phrases in present perfect continuous.
Listen to the conversation again and answer these questions:
When are they visiting their friend?
What does the audio say about the weather?
What are their plans for the weekend?
Click on the button to see if your answers are similar.
After practicing with a listening activity, now you can work on your reading skills.
Instructions: Read the text from the audio you just listened. Find the structures in future perfect continuous, take notes and then confirm if you identified them all by clicking on the button.
James and Rose are going to their friend’s house for the weekend, but it has been raining for the past few days and, according to weather forecast, it will also rain heavily on that weekend. Since they are going to drive a long way, they decided to rent a truck to avoid any mishap along the way. By the time they arrive, they will have been driving for over two hours.
When they arrive, they will be tired and hungry, because they will have been traveling for a while, but their friend already planned to have lunch ready for them. He will have been cooking one hour in advance to have everything ready on time.
After eating, they will probably drink a cup of coffee to relax and, after some rest, then maybe they will watch a movie. James, Rose and their friend will need to spend time together, as they will have been waiting to meet after all this time, despite the distance and bad weather.
Now put into practice your speaking skills with the following exercise.
Instructions 1: Read the sentences below and record your speech to check your pronunciation.
Instructions 2: Use the information from the audio and the text from the previous activities to talk about the following points. Be as detailed as you can and include some sentences in future perfect continuous in your speech.
Talk about:
* You can record your speech to monitor your fluency and pronunciation (this is optional).
In conclusion, future perfect continuous is used to express actions that are expected to continue for a long period of time. Don’t forget that these activities may start in the past, present or future.
Instructions: Look for information about technology. Then, choose a point in the future, it could be five or ten years, and write an essay (500 - 800 words) where you describe all the things that you consider will happen by that time.
*Please make sure to check your grammar and spelling after finisihng your essay.
