Grammar / B1+ Grammar lessons and exercises / Future continuous and future perfect
Future Continuous & Future Perfect
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🟦Future Continuous: Use
We use the future continuous to talk about actions that will be in progress at a specific time in the future.
✅ This time next week, we’ll be travelling to Paris.
✅ Tomorrow at 10, you’ll be doing your exam.
✅ When you get off the train, I’ll be waiting on the platform.
✅ In two months’ time, we’ll be lying on the beach and drinking a mojito.
It can also express future arrangements (similar to present continuous), but with a softer or more tentative tone:
✅ We’ll be coming next weekend.
✅ We’ll be leaving at 8 a.m. tomorrow.
🟩Future Continuous: Signal Words
Common time expressions used with the future continuous:
- This time + future (e.g., this time tomorrow, this time next week)
- At + time (e.g., at seven tomorrow, at midday next Monday)
- In + time period (e.g., in two weeks, in five years)
- In …’ time (e.g., in two weeks’ time)
- When + present simple clause (e.g., When you arrive…)
🟪Future Perfect: Use
We use the future perfect for actions that will be completed before a certain time in the future.
✅ By 2050, researchers will have found a cure for cancer.
✅ By this time next year, I’ll have graduated.
✅ When you arrive tomorrow, we’ll have left.
It can also express the duration of a situation up to a future point:
✅ By the time I leave, I will have been in England for six months.
✅ In two years, we will have been married for twenty years.
🟦Future Perfect: Signal Words
Common expressions used with the future perfect:
- By + time (e.g., by tomorrow, by next week, by the end of the year)
- By this time + future (e.g., by this time tomorrow)
- In + time period (e.g., in two weeks, in five years)
- When / Before + present simple clause
🔹 “By” means “not later than” or “before” a certain time.