Unit 3.1
Future Continuous for Prediction
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Introduction
Future continuous tense is used to talk about actions that will be in progress in the future.
We use the future continuous tense for different purposes. One of them is for making predictions and guessing about future events.
Form
The future continuous (or progressive) has three forms: affirmative, negative and interrogative.
Affirmative
Its full structure, in the affirmative form, is:
Subject + will + be + verb + -ing + …
Affirmative short form is ‘ll:
Subject + ‘ + ll + be + verb + -ing + …
| SUBJECT | FUTURE SIMPLE | AUXILIARY VERB |
PRESENT PARTICIPLE |
|---|---|---|---|
| I/You/He/She/It/We/You/They | will/’ll | be | working |
Negative
Its full structure, in the negative form, is:
Subject + will + not + be + [verb + -ing] + …
Negative short form is won’t:
Subject + won’t + be + verb + -ing + …
| SUBJECT | FUTURE SIMPLE + NOT |
AUXILIARY VERB | PRESENT PARTICIPLE |
|---|---|---|---|
| I/You/He/She/It/We/You/They | will not/won’t | be | working |
Interrogative
Its structure, in the interrogative form is:
Will + subject + be + verb + -ing + …?
| FUTURE SIMPLE | SUBJECT | AUXILIARY VERB | PRESENT PARTICIPLE | QUESTION MARK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Will | I/You/He/She/It/We/You/They | be | working | …? |
Example
- Every day you say you won’t be eating Turkish cuisine and then you do.
- He will be coming here to paint the walls.
- Will she be preparing dinner for us tomorrow?
- We won’t be having a day off on Friday.
- They will be cutting a lot of trees down.
Use
We use future continuous is used to talk about future events that we think will happen, or that are already decided.
Summary
We can use the future continuous tense to make predictions and guesses about new events.
We can use it in its different forms:
- affirmative: we start with the subject followed by will be and a verb that ends with -ing;
- negative: we start with the subject followed by will not be and a verb that ends with -ing;
- interrogative: we start with will followed by the subject and be and a verb that ends with -ing (the sentence ends with a question mark).
For example:
— “Doctors believe that you will be giving birth tomorrow at this hour.” = Doctors predict that during this time of the following day, the pregnant woman may be giving birth.
♦ “Doctors believe that you will give birth tomorrow.” = We use the future simple to express a prediction of the finished action and not the ongoing one.
Let’s revise this content within the {Form} section. Take a look at the {Example} section that shows its use within a context.
Exercises
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