Future Continuous

Future Continuous - We will be singing

The Future Continuous tense is often used in English as a way to talk about something happening at a given point in the future.

How do we make the Future Continuous tense?

The structure of the Future Continuous tense is:

subject + auxiliary verb WILL + auxiliary verb BE + main verb
invariable invariable present participle
will be base + ing

For negative sentences in the Future Continuous tense, we insert not between will and be. For question sentences, we exchange the subject and will. Look at these example sentences with the Future Continuous tense:

  subject auxiliary verb   auxiliary verb main verb  
+ I will   be working at 10am.
+ You will   be lying on a beach tomorrow.
- She will not be using the car.
- We will not be having dinner at home.
? Will you   be playing football?
? Will they   be watching TV?
We sometimes use shall instead of will, especially for I and we.

Contraction with Future Continuous

When we use the Future Continuous tense in speaking, we often contract the subject and WILL:

I will I'll
you will you'll
he will
she will
it will
we will we'll
they will they'll

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

I will not I won't
you will not you won't
he will not
she will not
it will not
he won't
she won't
it won't
we will not we won't
they will not they won't

How do we use the Future Continuous tense?

The Future Continuous tense expresses action at a particular moment in the future. The action will have started before that moment but it will not have finished at that moment. For example, tomorrow I will start work at 2pm and stop work at 6pm:

At 4pm tomorrow, I will be working.
past present future
    At 4pm, I will be in the middle of working.

When we use the Future Continuous tense, our listener usually knows or understands what time we are talking about. Look at these examples:

Note that continuous tenses are also called progressive tenses. So the Future Continuous tense is sometimes called the Future Progressive tense.

Back to 12 English Tenses