FUTURE CONTINUOUS

FUTURE CONTINUOUS

The future continuous tense, sometimes also referred to as the future progressive tense, is a verb tense that indicates that something will occur in the future 

It is formed using the construction will + be + the present participle (the root verb + -ing).

It is important to note that the future continuous tense is only used with action verbs, because it is possible to do them for a duration. (Action verbs describe activities like running, thinking, and seeing.)

Future continuous is used to say that an action will be in progress at a specific time in the future:

• This time on Thursday I’ll be flying to Thailand.

• In two hours she’ll be leaving work.

Future continuous is used for an action in progress in the future which is interrupted by a shorter action.

• I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.

Future continuous is used for arrangements, often as a reminder or warning.

• We’ll be leaving at 10 o’clock.

Future continuous is used to make polite enquiries about someone’s plans (without wishing to influence those plans).

• Will you be watching TV this evening?

We make questions by inverting the subject and auxiliary verb. With future continuous though we have two auxiliary verbs, will and be, so we just invert the first one, “will”, with the subject. The other one, “be”, stays with the main verb.

• Will we be having dinner at 8.00 tonight?

• What time will we be having dinner tonight?

• Who will be having dinner tonight?

To make a negative future continuous sentence, we use one of the auxiliary verbs (will) and “not”. The second auxiliary verb, “be”, stays with the main verb.

• We will not be having dinner at 8.00 tonight.

• I won’t be flying to Thailand this time next week.