Goodbye, Future Perfect!

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


My dear fellow learners:

(1) Are you afraid of the future perfect?

(2) Many native speakers do not like it, either.

(3) So they think of other ways to express the same meaning.

(4) I wanted to share an example that I just read this morning:

(a) A famous motion picture producer started a project in April of 2011.

It is now January of 2012. He said something like this:

It will soon be one year that we have devoted to this project.

(b) If he had wanted to be very formal, he would have used the future perfect:

By April, we will have devoted one year to this project.

(5) Don't be surprised if you do not see the future perfect very much. It is not

used very much. One great grammarian (George O. Curme) said that it was NOT

known in Shakespeare's time. It's "new" English.

[suprunp]

Is it possible, by any chance, to say "It will soon have been one year that we have devoted to this project."?

(I should probably head for a library to revive my knowledge of this, since I can't remember when I saw it last time )

Thanks.

[bhaisahab]

Is it possible, by any chance, to say "It will soon have been one year that we have devoted to this project."?

(I should probably head for a library to revive my knowledge of this, since I can't remember when I saw it last time )

Thanks.

Yes, it's possible. I don't think it's very likely though.

[SlickVic9000]

Is it possible, by any chance, to say "It will soon have been one year that we have devoted to this project."?

(I should probably head for a library to revive my knowledge of this, since I can't remember when I saw it last time )

Thanks.

(Not a Teacher)

I'm not a grammarian, but that sounds a little funky. I'd put "soon" at the beginning of that sentence. Personally, I'd just change the sentence entirely:

"Soon, we will have devoted a year to this project."

That rolls off the tongue more smoothly, I think.