Unit 26: Our future on Mars?
Future perfect
Select a unit
- 1 Pop-ups
- 2 Hidden talents
- 3 Can't buy me love
- 4 Travellers' tales
- 5 The colleague from hell
- 6 Jurassic mystery: unpacking the past
- 7 Career changes
- 8 Art
- 9 Project management
- 10 The dog ate my homework!
- 11 The diary of a double agent
- 12 Fashion forward
- 13 Flat pack skyscrapers
- 14 Extreme sports
- 15 Food fads
- 16 Me, my selfie and I
- 17 Endangered animals
- 18 A nip and a tuck: cosmetic surgery
- 19 I'm really sorry...
- 20 Telling stories
- 21 Fakes and phrasals
- 22 Looking to the future
- 23 Becoming familiar with things
- 24 From rags to riches
- 25 Against the odds
- 26 Our future on Mars?
- 27 Where is it illegal to get a fish drunk?
- 28 Dodgy dating
- 29 Annoying advice
- 30 I'll have been studying English for thirty weeks
Session 2
The future perfect is a verb form that you can use to talk about the timing of future events. It can also be used to talk about the past! A future form used to talk about the past? It sounds impossible, but it's true. By the end of this session you will have learned all about it.
Activity 1
Life's ambitions
What will the future bring and when?
We never know what will happen in the future but we can have plans. We can imagine ourselves in the future looking back at our achievements.
This is how teenager Susan imagines her life:
"By the time I'm 21 I'll have graduated from university. I'll have got married and had two children by the time I'm 30 and by 50 I'll have made my fortune from writing. By age 60 I'll have retired to a comfortable cottage in the countryside."
Susan imagines different times in her life and looks back from those times at her life. To do this she uses the future perfect form.
We use this form whenever we make predictions about something that is completed before a particular time.
- By the time you finish your shower I'll have finished my essay so we can go straight out.
- Next month we'll have known each other for ten years.
- This time next year I'll have completed my course so we can go travelling then.
Read the text and complete the activity
Time phrases
The future perfect looks back from a particular time so it's common to have time phrases in a future perfect sentence.
by + time/date/occasion:
- By 2020 this city wlll have doubled in size.
- We'll have finished the building work by next month.
- Will you have finished painting the bathroom by Christmas?
in + month/year/period of time:
- In June I'll have been out of work for three years.
- In 2020 we'll have been in this house for seven years.
- In 3 years we'll have been together for a decade
When talking about a period of time rather than a specific time you can also use (time period) from now or in (time period's) time:
- Three years from now we'll have been together for a decade.
- In three years' time we'll have been together for a decade.
Making the future perfect
The structure of the future perfect is:
subject + 'll/will/won't + 've/have + past participle
To do
Can you make well-formed future perfect sentences? Try the quiz to find out. Use the prompts below to help you.
1: you get home / he / to go to bed
2: you late / the film / to start
3: we / to move house / spring
4: 7 years / we / to pay off / the mortgage
5: we / to predict / 2018 / our profits / to double
Future Perfect
5 Questions
Arrange the words in each question to make sentences using the future perfect. In each question there are two words you don't need. Use the prompts on the page to help you.
Help
Activity
Arrange the words in each question to make sentences using the future perfect. In each question there are two words you don't need. Use the prompts on the page to help you.
Hint
Remember the structure of the future perfect and the time phrases that go with it.Question 1 of 5
Help
Activity
Arrange the words in each question to make sentences using the future perfect. In each question there are two words you don't need. Use the prompts on the page to help you.
Hint
Remember the structure of the future perfect.Question 2 of 5
Help
Activity
Arrange the words in each question to make sentences using the future perfect. In each question there are two words you don't need. Use the prompts on the page to help you.
Hint
Remember the structure of the future perfect.Question 3 of 5
Help
Activity
Arrange the words in each question to make sentences using the future perfect. In each question there are two words you don't need. Use the prompts on the page to help you.
Hint
Remember the structure of the future perfect and the time phrases that go with it.Question 4 of 5
Help
Activity
Arrange the words in each question to make sentences using the future perfect. In each question there are two words you don't need. Use the prompts on the page to help you.
Hint
Remember the structure of the future perfect and the time phrases that go with it.Question 5 of 5
Excellent! Great job! Bad luck! You scored:
Next
The future perfect is not only for the future! It can also be used for the present and the past. Find out how in the next activity...
Session Grammar
The future perfect
Positive and negative forms:
subject + 'll/will/won't + 've/have + past participle
I'll have done it by then.
I won't have finished by then.Question form:
will / won’t + subject + have + past participle
Will you have read all the reports by the end of the day?
Time phrases with the future perfect
By + year / month / season / event / this time next year (etc.)
In + month / year / (time period's) time