The future perfect continuous tense, also known as future perfect progressive, is used to put an emphasis on the duration and progession of an action up to a certain time in the future. We also used it to talk about past actions from a future point in time.
Signal words for future perfect continuous used to refer to a specific time include next year, by this time, last week, etc.
Conjugation
Rule 1: To form the future perfect continuous tense, we use the same structure will + have + been + verb in the -ing form (present participle) for all persons.
Here is an overview of how to conjugate the future perfect continuous in positive, negative and interrogative sentences:
| Person | Positive | Negative | Question |
|---|---|---|---|
| I / you / we / they; he / she / it | I will have been playing. | He will not have been playing. | Will they been have playing? |
Note: In spoken and informal English, we can also use contractions in the future perfect continuous tense - a short combination of the verb will and particle not.
Here's an overview of contractions for the future perfect continuous tense:
| Long Form | Contraction | Example |
|---|---|---|
| will | 'll | they'll |
| will not | 'll not / won't | they'll not / they won't |
Usage
Rule 2: We use the future perfect continuous tense to put an emphasis on the length of an action in progress at a certain time in the future (usually with reference to the duration of the action).
Rule 3: We use the future perfect continuous tense to describe what we imagine or think is happening at a certain time in the future or present.
Rule 4: We use the future perfect continuous tense to express an assumption about what was happening at a certain time in the past.
Quiz
1/4Complete the sentence. In half an hour she will have been ___ for 5 hours straight.