Future Perfect

Here you will find some guidelines on how to form the future perfect and continuous, when and how to use it, and some practice exercises that you can do with your students. You will find a downloadable printout at the bottom of the page.

Form

will/won’t have + past participle

I will have finished cooking dinner by the time he gets home.
I won’t have passed my driver’s licence before I get my new car.
I will have visited at least 10 countries by the time I turn 40.

Uses

We use the future perfect to show when something will be finished by a particular time in the future.

By the time I turn 30, I will have finished studying.
He will have parked the car by the time the movie starts.
By this time tomorrow I will have written all my exams.

Questions

Do you think you will have finished that exercise by Friday?
Do you think the moon will have become a tourist destination by 2030?
Will you have washed the dishes by the time I get home?

Future Perfect Continuous

We use the continuous form to show the duration of something before a particular time in the future:

You will have been waiting for 2 hours by the time the bus arrives.
By the end of this year, I will have been living in London for 5 years.
By this time tomorrow, I will already have been running the marathon for 2 hours.

Practice

Controlled Practice

When ___________________________ (do) everything?
___________________________ (finish) what you need to do before you go home?
He __________________________ (write) all his exams by then, so we can go away for the weekend.
______________________________(arrive) by the time it’s dark?
She _______________________________(not/finish) her thesis by the deadline.
How long ____________________________ (work) here by the time you retire?
By this time tomorrow, I ______________________________ (finish) my exams.
I can wait until 7, but by that time I ____________________________ (wait) for 2 hours.
By 2020, we __________________________ (live) in Madrid for 10 years.

Free Practice

Give the students about 5 blank flashcards each. They have to write a time in the future on each card e.g. next Wednesday, 5pm tomorrow, 2030 etc. Place all the flashcards facedown and mix them up. The students need to take turns choosing a card, and then asking another student a question which has to include the time mentioned on the card and has to be in either the future perfect or continuous. The other student has to answer the question also using the future perfect/continuous.