Podcast 25 - B2 Future continuous and perfect compared

Introduction to the future tense

Hello, and today I'm going to talk to you about future continuous and future perfect. And what I would like to do is to try to put them into context for you with tenses and aspects of tenses that you already know. Here we go...

Now, I often get the impression that future continuous and future perfect are more advanced tenses learnt later on in our English studies [or rather my students tend to think that], because they are more complex and more difficult to acquire. Well, I don't think that we ought to feel that that's the case really. Let's have a look.

Future continuous

Now, one of the first tenses or aspects that we learn is the present continuous, and students don't usually have problems with comprehending that present continuous talks about something happening now.

What are you doing?
Well, I am watching this documentary - it's very interesting.

So of course, present continuous gives the idea that there is an action going on at the moment.

So after learning present continuous, soon afterwards, we will learn how to use past continuous and that doesn't seem to be too complicated either, does it really?

I was watching the documentary when the telephone rang.

Now, it's difficult really to talk about something in the past, being a long and continuous event, unless we compare it with something that happened. For example,

the telephone rang

is a sort of short action. And that compares and contrasts with the longer action of watching the documentary. So we use past continuous in that sort of situation.

Now, what about future continuous? Well, let's just have a look at the structure. First of all, it's the subject, let's say I, instead of saying I am watching, I'm just going to put will in there. So,

I will be watching.
I will + be, in the infinitive, of course, after the modal auxiliary + the present participle - watching.

Now let's just think of it as present continuous or past continuous, but place that continuous action into the future. We really need some sort of action to contrast future continuous so we notice that one of the actions is longer. So I might say then, don't call me please, tomorrow evening, at eight o'clock. Why? Because there is a documentary on the television. It starts at half past seven, and finishes at half past eight. So,

If you call me at eight o'clock, I will be watching the documentary.

So there's the action, which is interrupting the watching of the documentary. If I don't do that, if I don't have that contrast, well, I'll probably just say,

Tomorrow, I'm going to watch the documentary

or possibly our wonderful, present continuous for future.

I'm watching the documentary tomorrow.

But if we don't have that contrast, well then we probably won't use future continuous. So don't call me that time. Don't call me at eight o'clock because

I'll be watching the documentary.

Future perfect

Let's think now about present perfect and future perfect and past perfect and put them all into contrast. Present perfect is just that we start here in the present time, and if I say,

I have watched the documentary,

well, then you understand that that is a completed action in the past. And it's connected somehow to the present. So somehow, I'm going back really from the present to a past action.

I've watched the documentary, I've seen the documentary, it was very interesting. I enjoyed it. [This is what I think of the documentary now.]

So there's some reason in the present, why I use it, it's connected to the present.

Now, if we use past perfect, well, there's a similar idea where we have a point in time, which goes further back in time.

When you telephoned me last night, I had seen the documentary,

I might say something with an adverb there to make it clearer.

I had just seen the documentary,

So that's past perfect, isn't it? So I'm referring to when you called me and then I go back just before into the past. And that is then past perfect. So that's interesting, isn't it, we have present perfect,

I have seen
I have just seen.

So it's from now going back in time, then past perfect, which is in the past, and we go further back in time again.

Now future perfect is exactly the same thing. But it's going to be in the future, obviously. I might say, then, please call me at half past eight tomorrow evening. Because then,

I will have seen the documentary, and the documentary will have finished.

So I will have seen the documentary, if you call at half past eight, tomorrow evening. And I think you can see that the the similarity, then we're talking about a moment in the future. And I refer back to a time just before that.

Future perfect continuous

Now, the last one to consider then will be future perfect continuous. And that will be a mixture of perfect and continuous, obviously. Now, if we think first about present perfect continuous well, as we know, that talks about an action, which started in the past, and continues up to the present time. Now, if we think about this documentary that I seem to be watching every day, between half past seven and half past eight in the evening, I could say, if it was half past eight now, that

I have been watching this documentary for an hour,

or...

...since half past seven.

Now, if we go back into the past, and we think of past perfect continuous, let's say yesterday, when I was watching yesterday's episode of the documentary,

I had been watching this documentary for an hour.

Now, the future is going to be similar but in the future. So tomorrow there's another episode between half past seven and half past eight. So if you telephone me tomorrow at half past eight, I could say that now, that,

I will have been watching this episode of the documentary for an hour.

Right so I'm getting a bit fed up with this documentary. I think I'll finish there. Goodbye.