Future Perfect Continuous

Learn how to talk about future actions that will have been happening over time, with easy examples and tips. By the end, you’ll confidently use this tense in conversations—perfect for exams or everyday English!

Grammar

Practice how to use Future Perfect Continuous.

Transcript

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Introduction:

• Host: Hello and welcome to the English Magnet. Today’s video: The Future Perfect Continuous Made Easy! Overlooked and even dismissed at times, we’ll delve into a future tense ideal to focus on duration while juggling actions and points in time. This topic might seem a bit of a mouthful, but by the end of the video, you’ll understand how to form it, when to use it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. Let’s get started!

Part 1: Structure of the Future Perfect Continuous

Ok, the future perfect continuous consists of four words, that might seem overwhelming, but just wait its structure is actually pretty simple; three auxiliaries (will have been) and a present participle. No matter the subject pronoun, all verbs have a single form! This means verbs have a single form for all subjects. Moreover, the auxiliaries are always the same, they are your stone pillars! The only thing to keep in mind is that the present participle changes along with the verb you conjugate. So, the future perfect continuous looks like this: subject + will have been + present participle (-ING form). 

Example: 

He will have been working

We will have been driving

They will have been cleaning

Contractions are common for the subject and will, so you get: 

He’ll have been working 

We’ll have been driving 

They’ll have been cleaning 

Insert ‘not’ between the first two auxiliaries (will have) to get the negative form or merge will and not to get won’t which is very commonly used in spoken English. So, we get: 

He will not have been working / He won’t have been working

We will not have been driving / We won’t have been driving

They will not have been cleaning / They won’t have been cleaning

How about questions? Invert the subject and will! For a negative question flip the subject and won’t or just include not after the inversion. 

Example:

Will he have been working? / Won’t he have been working? / Will he not have been working? 

Will we have been driving? / Won’t we have been driving? / Will we not have been driving? 

Will they have been cleaning? / Won’t they have been cleaning? / Will they not have been cleaning? 

Part 2: Uses

Now with the structure of the future perfect continuous out of the way, let’s look at when we use it. It helps to think of it as a tense with an emphasis on the duration of a future ongoing action up to a certain moment. Imagine you’re running a marathon, but instead of focusing on the finish line, you’re keeping track of how long you’ve been on the move. You know that by the time you hit the 20-mile mark, you will have been running for 3 hours. You’re not done with the race at this point in the future, but the real story here is the effort and time you’ve already put in. Hey, at least this verb tense is way easier than a 26-mile race!

Let’s look at concrete uses: 

1) It can be used to emphasize the duration of an action. This tense focuses on how long an action will have been happening before a specific future moment.

Example: By next month, I will have been watching movies in English for a year. The watching is currently ongoing, but the one year mark will happen next month. It’s implied that the action will continue beyond the one year mark! You definitely should continue watching movies in English to help you learn. 🙂 

2) It can be used to talk about an ongoing action leading up to a future event. It describes an action that will still be in progress just before a certain point in the future.

Example: By the time the train arrives, we will have been waiting for over an hour. Yes, the waiting is over once the train arrives, but the future perfect continuous focuses on the length of time the waiting took! Go ahead and use the future perfect (by the time the train arrives, we will have waited for over an hour) to focus instead on the completion of the waiting. Do you want to emphasize the fact that the action is over or how long it lasted? Up to you! 

3) It can be used to predict a continuous future action. This tense is often used to predict how long something will continue until a future event.

Example: When I graduate, I will have been attending this university for five years. The graduation hasn’t happened yet, but the speaker is expecting it to happen in the future and so the ongoing attending will have continued up to the graduation. 

4) It can be used to express cause and effect in the future. It explains the cause of a future situation by emphasizing the length of an action leading up to its effect.

Example: She will be tired because she will have been working on her project all day. The cause is the long ongoing working to the effect of being tired! 

Part 3: Key time words

Since the future perfect continuous stresses the length of a future action, you’ll use time words to help you situate the action in relation to a point in time. 

1) By + future time word (tonight, tomorrow, next week/month/year, future moment…) & For + period of time (an hour, two days, four weeks, a decade…)

‘By’ is the most common time word found with the future perfect continuous. ‘by’ together with a future time word mark a point in time anchoring the ongoing action. Meanwhile, ‘for’ followed by a period of time help us figure out how long the action has been taking place. 

Example: By next week, she will have been working here for two years. At a point in the future (next week) the working will have lasted 2 years and will most likely continue. 

2) When + present simple 

This structure is commonly used to describe a future action that will have been in progress for a certain period of time or will conclude, with an emphasis on the duration leading up to that point.

Example: When I retire, I will have been teaching for 40 years. A prediction is made for the time when I retire which is a teaching career of 40 years. Yes at the point in the future the teaching is over, but the emphasis is on the duration!

Part 4: Common Mistakes

1) Future perfect continuous vs future perfect simple

Careful when juggling between these two tenses, they aren’t interchangeable; their focus and meaning aren’t the same. 

Example: By next year, I will have worked here for three years. Here the future perfect simple is only correct if you wish to focus on the completion of the action at some point next year, perhaps a work contract will be coming to an end. However, if you wish to highlight a milestone (3 years of work in the same company or position) for an ongoing action not coming to an end, go for the future perfect continuous: By next year, I will have been working here for three years. 

2) Omitting the future context

Don’t dismiss time words, omitting time expressions just feels odd or deprives the action of context.

Example: I will have been studying for my exam. In a vacuum, this sentence is incomplete, we lack a duration and an anchor point in the future. By next Monday, I will have been studying for my exam. Ah! Now we have ‘next Monday’ as a specific point in the future to put the studying in a future duration context, great! 

Wrap up

• Host: That’s a wrap on the future perfect continuous! Now you know how to talk about actions that will have been ongoing for a certain duration by a future point. Hopefully, by the end of this video, the future perfect continuous will have been sinking in! 😊 If you’re up for more, don’t forget to check out our other videos! Also, a link to some free material to practice by yourselves can be found in the description below. Keep practicing, and you’ll get the hang of it. Thank you for watching. Until next time!