Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about the future perfect progressive tense and how to make statements with this grammar point. This is similar to the future perfect tense, the simple future perfect tense. It might be helpful if you check out that grammar point in addition to this grammar point. Let's begin.
Let's first take a look at when we use the future perfect progressive tense. We use this grammar point to refer to actions that will or won't be continuing at a specific point in the future. Here I've included "won't be continuing," but this is really, really rare. In general, this grammar point is not used a lot. Within this grammar point, using the negative form here is quite rare and, in most cases, there's a better way to say it than to use the negative form of the future perfect progressive. But, just in case you see it somewhere, this is how it's used. There's a specific point in the future and it refers to some action that will be continuing, something that's continuing at that point in the future; though, the action itself is going to end as well. We'll see a few examples of how to use this in just a moment. Keep in mind, then, you do need a point in time. You do need a specific point in time here.
Okay. Let's take a look at how to make the future perfect progressive. When we make the positive form, it's "will" plus "have been" plus the progressive form of the verb. When we make the negative form which, again, is very rare and it's not typically used, but just in case you see it somewhere, we would use "will not" or "won't" plus "have been" plus the progressive form of the verb. Don't worry too much about this one, it's not so common.
Let's take a look, then, at some examples which primarily use the positive form. Okay, first one. Our verb for this sentence is "live." Here, "As of next month, I will have been something in this city for eight years." First, let's complete the sentence. "I will have been live," in the progressive form or the continuous form is "living." "I will have been living in this city for eight years." What does this sentence mean? This means as of next month. This "as of" means like at this certain point in time in the future. As of next month, I will have been living in this city for eight years. The speaker is talking in the present, but the point in time is somewhere in the future, next month. "At this point in the future, I will have been living in this city for eight years," means up until this point, at this point in time, this marks a specific point in time, the speaker has been living. That has been a continuing action for eight years. That action has continued and, perhaps, will continue, I think, too. This refers to something that's continuing at this point in time.
Okay. Let's move on to another example, then. Here, our verb is "study." "When I graduate college, I will have been something in my field for four years." "In my field" means about my topic. "Field" means your topic of study. "When I graduate college, I will have been studying in my field for four years." Again, let's take a look at this. Here, our point in time is "when I graduate college." This is our key point in time in the future somewhere. "When I graduate college, I will have been studying in my field for four years," means at this point in time, this point marks the four-year point for this person's studies. That means in the period before that, for four years, this person studied his or her topic. This is referring to something that was continuing, and maybe will continue in the future. It marks a key point here, in this case, the four-year point.
Okay. Let's move along to the next example sentence. Our verb is "train." "By next week's marathon, he will have been something for six months." "Train," the progressive form is "training." He will have been training for six months. Here, our deadline is marked with "by." By next week's marathon, he will have been training for six months. At this point in time next week, the total time of his training will be six months. This is marking a milestone, a key point, some kind of action here. There's some special point in time marked here. Six months, this is the six-month point for his training.
All right. Let's move on to what I said was a rare sentence pattern. That's using this in the negative. This is not a common sentence pattern and it's not something that we typically use. Instead of using the future perfect progressive tense in the negative, we might use a different grammar, something else to explain a situation. This is quite rare. I just want to introduce it to, maybe, give an example of what it could mean. But, again, this is something that's not really used. With that in mind, let's take a look. The verb here is "drink." "As of tomorrow, she won't have been something alcohol for one month." Let's finish the sentence first. The verb is "drink," the progressive form is "drinking." "As of tomorrow, she won't have been drinking alcohol for one month." Here, we have our point in time, "as of tomorrow." "Tomorrow" is our point in time. She won't have been drinking alcohol for one month. That means this action, drinking alcohol, has not happened, had not been continuing for a period of one month. In this example, perhaps the speaker decided, I'm sorry, in this example perhaps, "she," this person decided not to drink alcohol, to stop drinking alcohol. This is showing us at this point in time tomorrow, for a period of one month, the speaker has not been drinking alcohol. Again, this is a rare sort of sentence. This is not so common. But in case you see something like this, this is what it means. That means as of this key point, something has not happened. Something has not been happening here. In this case, no drinking alcohol in this period of time. Again, there are very few situations, perhaps, where we need to talk about this, but you might see an example like that.
Okay. Let's continue on with one more, kind of more typical example here. The verb is "pay." "By 2020, I will have been something student loans for 10 years." Student loans, that's money that we receive in order to go to university or to college. The verb is "pay." We will use "paying," the progressive form. "By 2020, I will have been paying student loans for 10 years." At 2020, by the year 2020 – this is my point, my key point here – I will have been paying. That means up until this point, continuously, I will have been paying student loans for a 10-year period. Again, this is a continuing action, started some time and is going to continue to this point mentioned in the sentence.
This is a quick introduction to the future perfect progressive tense. Like I said, it's not such a common grammar point, but it does communicate a lot of interesting information about the future and something that's going to continue into the future. If you see this, or if you hear this, please try to keep these points in mind. Again, the negative form is quite rare. Don't worry too much about this one, but if you see it this will help you understand that it's an action that was not continuing. An interesting thing, I think. All right. I'll finish there. If you have any questions or comments, or if you'd like to practice making a sentence with this grammar, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and we'll see you again soon. Bye-bye!

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