Future Perfect

The Future Perfect tense is quite an easy tense to understand and use. The Future Perfect talks about the past in the future.

How do we make the Future Perfect tense?

The structure of the Future Perfect tense is:

subject + auxiliary verb WILL + auxiliary verb HAVE + main verb
invariable invariable past participle
will have V3

Look at these example sentences in the Future Perfect tense:

  subject auxiliary verb   auxiliary verb main verb  
+ I will   have finished by 10am.
+ You will   have forgotten me by then.
- She will not have gone to school.
- We will not have left.  
? Will you   have arrived?  
? Will they   have received it?

Contraction with Future Perfect

In speaking with the Future Perfect tense, we often contract the subject and will. Sometimes, we may contract the subjectwill and have all together:

I will have I'll have I'll've
you will have you'll have you'll've
he will have
she will have
it will have
he'll have
she'll have
it'll have
he'll've
she'll've
it'll've
we will have we'll have we'll've
they will have they'll have they'll've

In negative sentences, we may contract with won't or won't've, like this:

We sometimes use shall instead of will, especially for I and we.

How do we use the Future Perfect tense?

The Future Perfect tense expresses action in the future before another action in the future. This is the past in the future. For example:

The train will have left when you arrive.
past present future
    Train leaves in future at 9am.
  9   9:15
 
 
    You arrive in future at 9.15am.

Look at some more examples:

You can sometimes think of the Future Perfect tense like the Present Perfect tense, but instead of your viewpoint being in the present, it is in the future:

have
done
   
  will
have
done
 
past present future

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