Future Perfect Continuous Tense: Meaning, Uses and Examples + Exercises
TENSE: FUTURE PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE
The Future Perfect Continuous tense looks at the past from the future.
How do we make the Future Perfect Continuous Tense?
The structure of the Future Perfect Continuous tense is:
| subject | + | auxiliary will | + | auxiliary have | + | auxiliary be | + | main verb |
| invariable | invariable | past participle | present participle | |||||
| will | have | been | base + ing |
For negative sentences in the Future Perfect Continuous tense, we insert not between will and have. For question sentences, we exchange the subject and will. Look at these example sentences with the Future Perfect Continuous:
FUTURE PERFECT
| subject | auxiliary verb | auxiliary verb | auxiliary verb | main verb | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| + | I | will | have | been | working | for four hours. | |
| + | You | will | have | been | travelling | for two days. | |
| – | She | will | not | have | been | using | the car. |
| – | We | will | not | have | been | waiting | long. |
| ? | Will | you | have | been | playing | football? | |
| ? | Will | they | have | been | watching | TV? |
Contraction with Future Perfect Continuous
In speaking with the Future Perfect Continuous tense, we often contract the subject and WILL:
| I will | I’ll |
| you will | you’ll |
| he will she will it will |
he’ll she’ll it’ll |
| we will | we’ll |
| they will | they’ll |
I’ll have been driving for five hours.
She’ll have been watching TV.
In negative sentences, we may contract with won’t, like this:
| I will not | I won’t |
| you will not | you won’t |
| he willnot she will not it will not |
he won’t she won’t it won’t |
| we will not | we won’t |
| they will not | they won’t |
You won’t have been drinking, will you?
We won’t have been driving for long.
How do we use the
Future Perfect Continuous Tense?
The Future Perfect Continuous tense is like the Future Perfect tense, but it expresses longer actions or states extending up to some specific event or time in the future.
For example:
Ram starts waiting at 9am. I am late and cannot arrive before 10am.
Ram will have been waiting for an hour by the time I meet him.
| Ram will have been waiting for one hour when I arrive. | |||||||||
| past | present | future | |||||||
| Ram starts waiting at 9am. | |||||||||
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| I will arrive in future at 10am. | |||||||||
Notice that the long action or state can start at any time in the past, present or future, but of course it always ends in the future.
| Next Monday we will have been living here for exactly five years. | ||||||||||
| past | present | future | ||||||||
|
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Look at these examples:
He’ll be tired when he gets here. He’ll have been travelling all day.
How long will Jo have been working when he retires?
Next month I‘ll have been studying Chinese for two years.
Will you have been working when I arrive?
He won’t have been studying long enough to qualify.
Next week Jane is going to swim from England to France. By the time she gets to France she‘ll have been swimming non-stop for over thirteen hours.
Future Perfect Continuous Quiz
You can do this grammar quiz. It tests what you learned on the Future Perfect Continuous page.
1. My mom ________ for two days by the time I see her.
2. They’ll be exhausted by dinner. They will have been _____ hockey for seven hours.
3. Will you ________ here for ten years by the time of the Christmas party?
4. It’s a 24-hour relay. They’ll only have been ________ for half the time by 6pm.
5. We ________ been waiting long.
FUTURE PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE
6. I ________ working for two years.
7. Won’t they ________ travelling for two weeks by then?
8. The teachers will ________ for a month by the time the deal is made.
9. The films run all night. We ________ movies for six hours by the time the feature comes on.
10. She’ll still be groggy. She ________ undergoing surgery for three hours.
