Future Perfect Continuous Tense

The future perfect continuous is an English verb form used to describe an action that starts in the future and continue up to another time or action in the future. This can be a time or date, or it can be another action. Often a duration is specified for the verb in the future perfect continuous. This verb form alone does not specify if the action will continue after that point.

This is a very rare verb form. Less than .1% of English verbs are in the future perfect continuous. Do not use this verb tense unless you are absolutely certain that it is necessary.

Note that continuous and progressive are just different words for this same thing, so some people call this tense the future perfect progressive.

Keep reading to learn the rules and reasons for using and forming the future perfect continuous, including loads of charts and examples!

Using the Future Perfect Continuous

Perfect continuous verbs are used to describe an action that has been in progress before another action or point in time, often with a duration specified. With the future perfect continuous, that time is in the future. This can be a time or date (next summer, Saturday at 5, in 2050) or it can be another action in the future.

Chart for Future Perfect Continuous Tense In English

Future Perfect Continuous Tense

Here are some example sentences:

By the time I finish my Ph.D., I will have been studying for over 20 years!

Monday is my work anniversary. I'm going to have been working here for a decade!

In these examples, the perfect continuous action (will have been studying, going to have been working) is presented with a duration (over 20 years, a decade) and another action (I finish) or point in time in the future (Monday).

Form

Formula with Will

To form the future perfect continuous, we use the future perfect form of the helping verb be—will have been or going to have been—and the continuous form of the main verb. No matter what the subject is, the verb form is

subject + will have been + VERBing

Conjugation

Here are conjugation tables showing the verb work in the future perfect continuous with will.

Future Perfect Continuous Tense Verb Conjugation with Will
Singular Plural
1st person I  will have been working. we  will have been working.
2nd person you  will have been working. you  will have been working.
3rd person he  will have been working. they  will have been working.
she  will have been working.
it  will have been working.

Formula with Going to

Because forming the future tenses with going to is more complex and wordy, we almost never form the future perfect continuous with going to. In the rare situation that we might use it, the form is

subject + am/is/are + going to have been + VERBing

Conjugation

Here is a conjugation table:

Future Perfect Continuous Tense Verb Conjugation with Will
Singular Plural
1st person I  am going to have been working. we  are going to have been working.
2nd person you  are going to have been working. you  are going to have been working.
3rd person he  is going to have been working. they  are going to have been working.
she  is going to have been working.
it  is going to have been working.

Other Forms

Questions

In the future perfect continuous, you have more than one helping verb. To make a question, move the subject after the first helping verb, will, but before the second helping verb, have. Again, please keep in mind that these forms are extremely rare, and these examples sound very unnatural in English; we share them only to help students understand the patterns of the language.

At what point will you have been acting for 20 years?

When will they have been playing this game for too long?

Negative Sentences

You can form a negative by inserting not between the first helping verb will and the second helping verb have. For example:

In January, we will not have been living in California for 20 years.

But notice that the negative form is ambiguous. It is unclear which part of the sentence we are negating. Are we living someplace other than California? Has it just not been 20 years yet? This is a good reason to avoid making negative sentences in the future perfect continuous.

The Passive Voice

If for some reason you need to make a passive sentence in the future perfect continuous, use be in the future perfect continuous (will have been being) and then the perfect form of the main verb. As you can see in the following example, this is awkward and confusing

Next year the house will have been being renovated for 5 years.

We do not recommend making future perfect continuous passive sentences.

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER FREE GRAMMAR RESOURCES:

 

Most Common English Verb Tenses

English Verb Form Frequency

We spend a lot of time in English class studying all the different verb tenses. I can't tell you how many times my students have asked me, "How often do we really use the future perfect progressive?" My answer is usually that it is very rare, but it's meaningful, and it can be helpful to understanding how the past perfect progressive works as well. But that really is a good question:

How often do we use each verb tense in English?

This is an important question because there are 12 different verb tenses in English, and you want to study strategically, learning the most valuable ones!

Let's start by saying that there is no one answer. As you may know, the English we use for speaking is different from the English we use in writing. There are many different situations to be speaking or writing in, and in each of those situations we would see different verb frequencies. Even from person to person, our individual speaking style might lead one person to use, for example, the present tense more often than another person. We can, however, observe some useful patterns.

The 5 Most Commonly used English Verb Tenses

If you are looking for a quick answer, here it is:

5 Most Common English Verb Tenses
# Tense Frequency
1 Simple Present 57.51%
2 Simple Past 19.7%
3 Simple Future 8.5%
4 Present Perfect 6.0%
5 Present Continuous 5.1%

Some quick insights from the top 5:

  • The simple present accounts for more than half of the verbs used in English speech

  • The 5 most commonly used verb tenses total up to over 95% of usage

  • The simple tenses are the top three verb tenses

For a more in-depth analysis, read on!

The Source Material

For this post, we looked at an interesting research study by Krámský (1969). We have also updated this article to include findings from Alzuhairy (2016). Krámský took several different samples of three different styles (or registers) of English—novels, plays, and specialized (academic and technical) texts. He analyzed 20,000-word samples from each text, counting each form of each verb, and sharing all his data.

The results are complex, and grouped in ways that might not be too helpful, but I have tried to regroup them and show them in charts that are more useful for language teachers and learners.

Before we look at some of those patterns, I want to include a caveat, or warning. When compared to all the language in the world, Krámský's sample is actually very, very small. Ideally, we would get this information from a larger base of language called a corpus, like the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Unfortunately, information of this kind is currently difficult (if not impossible) to get from most corpora. Still, the general proportions and patterns that Krámský found should be fairly accurate. The one other warning is that the texts Krámský used as samples of spoken (or colloquial) English are actually plays, written to sound like spoken English. It is very possible that examples of actual spoken English would be different from the language found in the plays.

Ok, now let's get to the fun stuff!

Verb Tense Frequency

First, I've broken each text type down by verb tense: past, present, and future:

As you can see, there are some big differences between different text types. Spoken English is mostly in the present tense (68.9%), but fiction is mostly past tense (57.6%). Specialized texts overwhelmingly use the present tense (87.1%).

This makes a lot of sense. In fiction, we generally tell stories that take place before: first this happened, then that happened, then that happened. When we speak, though, we talk a lot more about what we think and feel and like, what we do, who people are, our experiences and all of these things are expressed in the present tense. In specialized texts, we are often writing about things that are generally true, and here again, we use the present tense a lot.

The future tense is less used in all text types: 9% in speech, 2% in fiction, and 4% in specialized texts.

This table breaks down each tense by frequency in all three text types:

5 Most Common English Verb Tenses
Tense Speech Frequency Specialized
Present 68.9% 40.3% 87.1%
Past 22.4% 57.6%% 8.7%
Future 8.7% 2.1% 4.3%

Verb Aspect Frequency

The tenses are easy enough—past, present, future—but the really tricky thing about learning English verbs is the four aspects: simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive. Thankfully, there isn't as much difference between the different styles of English when it comes to aspect. Take a look:

The charts look generally the same. In every style of English, the simple aspect—simple present, simple past, and simple future—makes up over 85% of verbs that we use. The lesser-used aspects all fall in the same order: after simple, it's perfect, then progressive, then perfect progressive gets a tiny little sliver of use. Biber and Reppen (2002) confirm this pattern, observing that the simple aspect is “more than 20 times as common as progressive in conversation.” (p. 204, cited in Alzuhairy (2016).

Alzuhairy (2016) studied academic texts in particular. The same general pattern applies, but simple present only accounts for about 50% of verbs in Alzuhairy’s findings.

Most Used Tenses and Aspects

5 verb forms make up 96% of all verbs in spoken English.

I think this may be one of the most useful insights from Krámský's work for teachers and students. Although there are 12 tense/aspect combinations in English, 5 of these cover around 96% of spoken English.

Notice that the simple present alone accounts for 57% of verbs. Next is the simple past (19.7%), then simple future (8.5%), followed by present perfect (6.0%) and then present progressive (5.1%). If you want to know which verb tenses to learn first, these five will definitely give you the most bang for your buck!

The remaining 7 tense/aspect combinations are each under 1.5% of spoken English verbs. Of course, it is valuable to learn all the combinations, but if you want to prioritize the most useful verb tenses, this should be helpful.

Active and Passive Voice

The passive voice is another of those constructions that challenges students and leads to the question, how useful is this? Well, again, Krámský's work gives us some idea how useful they are. Here is a breakdown of active and passive constructions in the three registers: 

The vast majority of verbs in English are in the active voice.

It is not surprising that the vast majority of verbs are active. The most important takeaways that I see are these: 97.5% of verbs in spoken English are active, but the passive voice is much more common in specialized and academic texts, in which only 82.2% of sentences are active.

Complete Table of Most Used Verb Tenses in English

Most Common English Verb Tenses
# Tense Frequency
1 Simple Present 57.51%
2 Simple Past 19.7%
3 Simple Future 8.5%
4 Present Perfect 6.0%
5 Present Continuous 5.1%
6 Past Continuous 1.4%
7 Past Perfect 1.2%
8 Present Perfect Continuous 0.7%
9 Future Perfect 0.2%
10 Future Continuous >0.1%
11 Past Perfect Continuous >0.1%
12 Future Perfect Continuous >0.1%

More free grammar resources:

Featured
Future Perfect Continuous Tense Verb Table
Future Perfect Continuous Tense
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Most Common English Verb Tenses
Apostrophe -s can be a Contraction of has or is
Contractions with Two Meanings
Sensory Verbs of Sight.jpeg
Sensory Verbs in English

English Verb Tense Test

How advanced is your English grammar knowledge? The Ginseng English Verb Tense Test is an assessment that tests your knowledge of all 12 English verb forms (3 verb tenses and all 4 aspects). The test and access to results are completely free!

There Is and There Are

Using There Is and There Are

In English, we use the phrases there is and there are to talk about things around us. We use there is to say that something exists, or that something is in a specific place. Here are some examples:

There is a dog.

There is a new house on my street.

There are two blue houses on my street.

There is a Chinese restaurant near my house.

There are many great cafes in my city.

There is milk in the refrigerator.

There are two women at the door.

Singular and Plural

The difference between there is and there are is simple. There is is for singular nouns (only one). There are is for plural nouns (more than one). Here are some more examples:

There is a ball.

There are two balls.

The pattern is simple. There is with singular things. There are with plural things. But one thing is a little different. In most situations, the noun is before the verb:

The cat is gray.

The dogs are white.

But with there is and there are, the noun comes after the verb is or are:
There is a gray cat.
Thete are two white dogs.

There is a gray cat.

There are two white dogs.

Negative Statements with There is and there are

To make a negative sentence with there is and there are, we can use not or no. All of these sentences are correct:

There is not any milk.

There is no milk.

There are not any eggs.

There are no eggs.

Contractions

Contractions are words that combine two words together into a new word, usually with an apostrophe. We very frequently combine there and is into the contraction there’s. Study at these examples:

There's milk in the fridge.

There's a good cafe on the corner.

There's a man at the door.

It is also possible to combine there and are into the contraction there’re, but this very informal and much less common than there’s.

Questions

To form a question with there is or there are, we usually just change the order of the words to is there and are there:

Is there a hospital near here?

Are there any eggs in the fridge?

We can also add question words before is there and are there:

Why is there a man at the door?

Where is there a bathroom I can use?

Contractions with Two Meanings

Lots of contractions!

Contractions are two words put together in a shorter form. We use lots of contractions in English: isn't (is not) doesn't (does not), didn't (did not), can't (cannot), won't (will not). I'm (I am), you're (you are), we're (we are). There are tons of them!

Confusing contractions

Apostrophe -s

But let's (let us!) talk about some tricky contractions. Contractions with apostrophe -s ('s) and apostrophe -d ('d) are difficult because they have two meanings. Think about it: what does he's mean? Look at these two sentences:

He's studying English.

He's visited England.

In the first sentence, he's means he is. In the second sentence, he's means he has. When we see 's it can mean either has or is. 

Apostrophe -d

I'd been working for hours.

I'd like a glass of champagne.

Apostrophe -s can be a Contraction of has or is
 

Sensory Verbs in English

Verbs related to the five senses can be really difficult in English. This post covers all five senses, including active and passive sensory verbs, complete with charts and examples!

English Grammar Guide

Grammar is a set of patterns that show how we can put words together in a language. This guide, completely written by expert English teachers, is a great place to start to learn all about English grammar.

Nouns & Pronouns

A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea, such as singer, Boston, apple, or fun. A pronoun is a word that stands for a noun or refers back to a noun, like they, he, she, them, or it.

Parts of Speech

There are 9 parts of speech in English: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.

Verbs

Verbs show the action in a sentence. We show how actions relate to each other with 12 different verb forms in English.

Verb Tenses

-ING Verbs

There is and There are

Sensory Verbs

Adjectives & Adverbs

We use adjectives and adverbs to describe. Adjectives describe nouns. For example, blue, hot, tall, thoughtful, and scary are all adjectives. Adverbs describe verbs. Some examples are slowly, often, calmly, clearly, and soon.

Demonstratives

The English demonstratives are this, that, these, and those.

Determiners

Pronouns