verb usage

[Linda Blok-Bussard]

To whom it may concern,

I am having trouble dertermining when exactly you should use the future perfect or the future perfect continuous. For example:

1. By the time we get to Chicago this evening we will have driven more than four hundred miles.

2. Margie just called and said she would be here at 8 o'clock. By the time she gets here we will have been waiting for her for two hours.

Can anyone help me with a comprehensible explanation?

Sincerely yours,

Linda

[redcrows]

To whom it may concern,

I am having trouble dertermining when exactly you should use the future perfect or the future perfect continuous. For example:

1. By the time we get to Chicago this evening we will have driven more than four hundred miles.

You can say this when an action starts at some point and completes later. So you are thinking ahead to what will occur. I often draw out a timeline showing past, present and future when I explain these.

2. Margie just called and said she would be here at 8 o'clock. By the time she gets here we will have been waiting for her for two hours.

It seems like the action starts now and completes at 8 o'clock in the future. Useful structures for accurately capturing actions which begin and end at different times.

eg: In six days I will have been living in Korea for 1 year

Can anyone help me with a comprehensible explanation?

Sincerely yours,

Linda

[2006]

hi redcrows
If you add color to your response when answering in a quote, it will be much easier to know who said what. Click on the A to the right of the place you choose script size.