The Future Perfect Tense

 

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 subject, will 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

• I'll have finished when you arrive.
• She'll have forgotten everything.
• They'll've had their dinner by then.

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

• Anthony won't have arrived by then.
• They won't've finished the car tomorrow.

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 leave the station at 9am. You will arrive at the station at 9.15am. When you arrive, the train will have left.

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 call me at work at 8 am. I will have arrived at the office by 8.
• They will be tired when they arrive. They will not have slept for a long time.
• "Mary won't be at home when you arrive." / "Really? Where will she have gone?"

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