Rules & Usages of Future Continues Tense in English Grammar

Want to learn the rules, structure, and usages of Future Continues Tense in English language and grammar? We use future continues tense or progressive tense for a future action over a period of time. It’s 10th class of tenses in English grammar and we will discuss it step-by-step in details.

What is Future Continues Tense?

Future continues tense or future progressive tense indicates an action which will occur in the future and will continue for an expected length of time. In some cases, we also use future continues tense to express “parallel actions” in future or an interrupted action in future. You should use this tense in the structure of sentences based on the continued future action.

Structures of Future Continues Tense

We use auxiliary verb “will be/shall be” and the present participle form of the verb (the -ing version) in the sentence structure of this tense. You will use the auxiliary verb ‘will be’ when the sentence of the subject is (3rd person+ singular number).

In all other cases, you have to use the auxiliary verb ‘shall be’. However, you may also use the verb ‘will be’ in case of all subjects to express the stronger expression.

The structure is:

Subject + will be/shall be + (Verb + ing) + Object + Extension

For Example:
He will be planning a trip in the next month for us.
I shall be drawing a nice picture for the exhibition.

Now, I will discuss the structure of negative and interrogative sentences of Future Continues Tense along with examples. In the past, I have discussed over other two continues tenses such as Present Continuous Tense and Past Continues Tense. If you didn’t study those lessons, please have a look on them.

In case of negative and interrogative structures, you just need to change the form of the auxiliary verbs in sentence structure. All other elements will remain same.

Negative Structure

STRUCTURE: Subject + will be/shall be +not + (Verb + ing) + Object + Extension

For Example:
I will not be waiting here for you.
They shall not be playing the match tomorrow.

Interrogative Structure

STRUCTURE: Shall/will+ Subject+ be+ (Verb+ing) +Object +Extension?

For Example:
Will I be waiting here for you?
Shall they be playing the match tomorrow?

Tense Indicator Words & Phrases

There are a few words and phrases which are used to express an action in the future. When you will find one of these phrases in a sentence, you can easily understand that the sentence is in future or future continues tense. So, these can be named as Future Continues Tense Indicator words and phrases. Please try to memorize these words and phrases.

• In the future
• Next week
• Next time
• Next year
• At this moment next year
• At this time tomorrow
• At 5 p.m tomorrow…

For Example:
He will be exercising at 5 p.m. tomorrow in this field.
They shall be preparing notes for the exam next year.

Usages & Rules

Now, it’s time to learn the rules and usages of future continues tense in practical life and daily usages. These rules will help you understand the proper usages of this tense in improving your free hand writing skill.

General and Expected Future Action

For Example:
We will be seeing them soon.
He will be making this basket today.

Expressing an Action at A Certain Future Time

For Example:
In 5 hours, he will be going there to do his job.
I shall be preparing the note in hours.

Indicating Interrupted Action

Sometimes, you will indicate two actions in future happening at the same time. The conjunction “When” will be used to connect two sentences. It will indicate that there will be an action happening and on that time another one action will interrupt the previous action. The previous work will be in future continues tense while the later action which will interrupt will be in future indefinite tense.

So, the structure of this rule is:

Structure: Future Continues Tense + When + Future Indefinite Tense

For Example:

I will be playing cricket when they will reach here.
They will be waiting there when we will come back.

Two Ongoing Actions Together

You may find a situation where two different actions will be happening together at the same time as “parallel actions” In this case, you can express one action in future continues tense and another one action will be in present continues tense. The conjunction “While” will be used as a connector between two sentences.

For Example:
I will be making basket while he will sleeping.
They shall be writing the letters while I am taking rest.

This is all about this tense. If you want to test your lesson, you can follow and practice these exercises on this tense. This will improve your knowledge on this tense.

I hope this lesson will give you clear idea on the variations of future continues tense in English language. Let us know your thoughts on this post and tense using the comment box below.