Keep Smiling English Future Tense Grammar

• Future Simple:
- Construction: will + base (infinitive without to) / negative: will not (won’t) + base
- Uses: actions in the future, which usually imply:
1. Instant decisions: 

I’ll have the steak. (in a restaurant)
2. Promises:

I won’t tell anybody, I swear.
3. Offers / voluntary actions: 

I’ll carry that bag for you, don’t you worry.
4. Requests (question form):

Will you give me a hand with my project?
5. Predictions / simple statements about the future:

I´m sure you’ll love the film.

No one will need to leave their homes to study in the year 2040. 

Today we’ll do something different during the class. 


• Future Continuous:
- Construction: will be + gerund (-ing)
- Uses: actions in progress at a particular moment in the future:

In the year 2020 I will probably be finishing my degree in economics. 

This time next week I’ll be flying to Cuba. I´m so excited!

• Future Perfect:
- Construction: will have + past participle (-ed or irregular form)
- Uses: actions finished by a particular moment in the future: 

By the year 2025 I will have finished my Master’s Degree in Marketing Strategies. 

Don’t worry, I will have tidied up my bedroom by the time you come back.

• Future Perfect Continuous:

- Construction: will have been + gerund (-ing)
- Uses: actions that will have been in progress for some time until a moment in the
future: 

By next Saturday, I will have been studying for 5 days. I´ll be exhausted! 

He will have been cooking for a couple of hours by the time you get home.
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Keep Smiling English Future Tense Grammar

• Other ways of talking about the future:

• shall + base:
1. Offers as questions with the first persons (I, We): this is probably the most
common use nowadays, especially in British English.
Shall I take you to the airport? I don’t mind, really. 

Shall we go out to dinner?
2. Future tense instead of will, typically with the first persons (I, We):
I shall ignore the questions which do not apply to a particular item.

We shall return to this question later on.
3. Expressing strong assertions or intentions:
You shall not pass! (Gandalf, against the Balrog in The Lord of The Rings)

They shall succeed. I’m sure about that!
4. Expressing an instruction, command, or obligation:
You shall not steal.

Every employee shall be responsible for the use of the resources available.

• be going to + base: to talk about predictions based on evidence, and for future
intentions/plans.
My sister is going to adopt a child. She made the decision yesterday. (intention)
The news said it’s going to rain tomorrow. (prediction)

• Present Continuous: am/is/are + gerund (-ing)


We use the present continuous for future arrangements, that is, things we have
decided to do and we have already made something to arrange it.
We’re getting married in October. We’ve already booked the church. 

She’s leaving on Friday.

• Present Simple: to talk about scheduled events or timetables.

Our train departs at 6.30 in the morning. We’ll have to get up very early. 

When does your plane arrive?

• Future Time Clauses (present simple): a future time clause is a part of a sentence,
similar to a conditional clause, but introduced by a time expression (when, before,
until, as soon as, etc.). In these cases, we normally use the present simple tense.
I will give you a call as soon as I get home.

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Keep Smiling English Future Tense Grammar
Don’t expect me to visit you before I finish my exams.

• be + to infinitive: in formal rules/instructions or to talk about official plans. Common in

news reports.
The British Prime Minister is to visit Madrid next week.
Staff are not to use the company telephone for personal calls.

• Future in the past: to talk about the future as it used to be in the past. We can use
was/were going to + infinitive, or would + base.
When I was a kid I thought I would be a doctor when I grew up.
By the time I left college, I knew I was going to move abroad at some point.

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