English Subjects

THE FUTURE CONTINUOUS TENSE

a. Use:

The Future Continuous tense is used to express continuous actions which will take place in the future.

--> Mr. Smith will be waiting for us.
--> They will be arriving tomorrow.


b. Formation

The Future Continuous of any verb is formed from the Simple Future of the auxiliary to be, followed by the present participle of the verb. For instance, the Future Continuous of the verb to work is conjugated as follows:

I will (shall) be working

you will be working

he will be working

she will be working

it will be working

we will (shall) be working

they will be working

It can be seen that the Future Continuous tense has two auxiliaries. The first auxiliary is will or shall, and the second auxiliary is be.

c. Questions and negative statements
As is the case with other English tenses, questions and negative statements in the Future Continuous are formed using the first auxiliary.

Questions are formed by placing the first auxiliary before the subject. For example:

Affirmative Statement	Question
It will be working.	Will it be working?
They will be working.	Will they be working?

Negative statements are formed by placing the word not after the first auxiliary. For example:

Affirmative Statement	Negative Statement
It will be working.	It will not be working.
They will be working.	They will not be working.

Negative questions are formed by placing the first auxiliary before the subject, and the word not after the subject. However, when contractions are used, the contracted form of not immediately follows the first auxiliary. For example:

Without Contractions	With Contractions
Will it not be working?	Won't it be working?
Will they not be working?	Won't they be working?