4 questions

[naomimalan]

Originally Posted by atlaisha

Hellooooo

Hellooo Atlaisha,

Yes we’re still around. Re your last three questions (21/2 posting), I’d say:

- They’re all acceptable though you’d have to really rack your brains to find a context for n° 2 (“you will have English learned”). For example, France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy, enthusiastic for rapid reforms, could say to his minister of Education, “By September 2008, you will have English learned by every pupil in all the country’s primary schools.” i.e. From September on, see to it that English is taught in every primary school in France. At a pinch, n° 2 might then be acceptable though it still sounds a bit strange: “You will have English taught” would be the correct way of phrasing it.


Though of course, Nicolas Sarkozy wouldn't be speaking in English. Anyway...

-N° 1 and n° 3 mean more or less the same thing to my way of thinking though n° 3 (you will be done with learning English) implies that the poor student being addressed is fed up with learning English. Also it does not imply that he will necessarily have mastered the language by a certain time in the future, it merely means that he will no longer be obliged to learn English. Whereas n°1 implies that he will indeed have mastered the language by a certain time in the future.

. As for the structure “you will have been learning English”, yes of course it is still used by native speakers. The difference between that and examples 1 and 3 is that the person will still be learning English at the future time mentioned by the speaker: In "By September, you will have been learning English for three years", for example, the future time mentioned is September.

[Batfink]

Okay, okay, okay...

Firstly, there is no time marker in each of the sentences. Therefore, they are incomplete.

"By this time next year, you will have learned English" is fine, for example.

It is okay to use "english learned".

The third expression is fine but rather informal.

Now the last expression, again, needs a time marker.

Remember that the present perfect tenses links one event from the past with a recent/present event. Well, future perfect (and future perfect continuous) links a past event (the reason for a past participle to be used - "been" in your example) with a future event.

So I need a time marker to make sense of your example. Here:

I am learning English now.

I have been learning English for 3 years (I started learning English 3 years ago).

I will have been learning English for 4 years next February (Started in the past the event - learning English - covers a period of time that will end in the future).

Remember that all perfect tenses consider time (physical or emotional time).

[atlaisha]

The reason I didn't use any time marker is that I wasn't sure how to use them.This is very complicated since we don't have these tenses in our language,I doubt if I can use other structures alternatively,please see if I got it right or not:

At ten oclock, you will have been doing your homework for 3 hours.
Can I use something else with the same meaning maybe like this:
At ten oclock,it will be 3 hours that you're doing your homework(or something else instead of the underlined?)

And about the following sentence, does it mean that from February you should begin studying English,and it's going to last 2 years?

From February,you will be studying English for 2 years.

What if I change the From to In?Does it make sense?And if it does,could it be the alternate for the future perfect continious?Like this:

In February,you will be studying English for 2 years.

Thank you so much,

[Batfink]

Yes, I agree that it is very complicated and I am glad to have learned the rules on a first language basis.

Look at my last sentence in my previous post. The perfect tenses are designed to reflect an element of TIME. So when you changed from future perfect to present continuous (which I understand, as we use present continuous for future intentions), you were incorrect because you are talking a PERIOD OF TIME: a continual activity that began in the past (hence the use of the past participle "been"), that will continues now (hence the use of the auxiliary very "have" in the present tense), and that will end in the future (hence the use of "will).

In other words there are three time elements at play when using the future perfect.

Now, be careful with using present continuous for speaking of future intentions. We do not use present continuous for future continual activities. We use future continuous. Therefore, write:

At ten o' clock you will be doing your homework. ("ten o' clock" is a specific time reference and not a period of time, so if you do speak of the 3 hours, you must use a perfect tense of some form).

From February,you will be studying English for 2 years.


Well, with some context, the sentence is acceptable and says that you start a course of English for two years, next February.

What if I change the From to In?Does it make sense?And if it does,could it be the alternate for the future perfect continious?

Think of "from" as a directional preposition. I am from Ireland. I work from Monday to Friday every week.

Think of "in" as a preposition of a non-specific place/time: "In an hour, I must teach" (that could be 59 minutes, it could 30 minutes).

"From" is fine in this example. But when you use "in" to me as a native speaker, you take me into a period of time (think of how we think of walking into a room - now think of the room as a period of time), and February only has 28/29 days (not two years). Therefore, only "in February, you will be studying English". is okay.

Hope it helps.

[atlaisha]

It helped me a lot.I just understood the reason I can't use the present continious, And also preposition are difficult to learn for me, since they are usually used in an other way in Persian, but the 3 last paragraph just cleared the matter for me,so I really appreciate it. English is a lovely language, it just brightens up my day when I learn a new stuff.

[Batfink]

Originally Posted by atlaisha

It helped me a lot.I just understood the reason I can't use the present continious, And also preposition are difficult to learn for me, since they are usually used in an other way in Persian, but the 3 last paragraph just cleared the matter for me,so I really appreciate it. English is a lovely language, it just brightens up my day when I learn a new stuff.

No problems, most teachers always like to help those who are genuinely interested.

I have some notes on prepositions somewhere, pm me with an email contact and I will sent it to you as an attachment if I find the time.

Now that you are becoming more thoughtful in your English use, you will find that there are five categories of prepositions, those of TIME, of MANNER, of REASON, of PLACE, and of DIRECTION. This is taught at an advanced level. You start thinking and learning in this way, the rules, and the exceptions, you will go a long way to a more proficient level of using English. Good luck!

[cmm]

Originally Posted by atlaisha

Hello again,
I decided to ask all my questions here.

Could you please tell me what the differences between(or among??)these three sentences are?Like which is the most common,how formal they are and the difference in their meanings.

1-you will have learned English.
2-you will have English learned.
3-you will be done with learning English.

And we learned a new structure today like in this sentence:

You will have been learning English.

I haven't heard it before,could you tell me if it is used at all nowadays by native speakers?

Thanks in advance.

Hello Atlaisha!
I hope this doesn't arrive too late!
Yes, "among" is the correct word. (You use "between" when you have two elements only)

Now to your answers:
1- it refers to an activity that will be finished in the future, for example, if you started learning English last year, by 2009 "you will have learned English for three years". We don't know if you will continue or not.
2- This sounds incorrect to me, a "learned" person is possible, but it is an adjective, meaning he/she knows a lot.
3- This one means you will have finished a course for example, you may add the date ( By December ...)

The last one gives the idea that you mention the middle of the activity, what you have done and will go on doing it. (for example: By the end of the term you will have been learning for three years - and continue doing so)

Yes, it is used nowadays.

Hope it helps!

[atlaisha]

Thank you cmm, about my first question,between or among,I know between is used for 2 things,but I have seen in song lyrics a couple of times that they use between when there are more than one,I RECALL THIS ONE:

I read again between the lines upon the page
The words of love you sent me

I remember someone mentioned this in my English class and they suggested that between is used when we know the exact number,however in the example above,I don't think the writer knew how many lines there were.
I just forgot about it until now, so what's the rule here?

[Bergbau]

You could, I suppose, ask the question "Which of the American Presidents was Bill Clinton?" The answer might then be "The forty-second". But the answer could also be "He was the one who did not have sexual relations with that woman".

[cmm]

Hi Atlaisha!

I've found an interesting dictionary site with a lot of examples for you to see the between-among theme more clearly. Here's the link: between - Definitions from Dictionary.com

I would like to add, that to read "between the lines" is a form of expression, no matter if there are two lines or more, meaning you get what the speaker/writer really wants to say.

Songs are like poems, they have special licenses, permission, to change the order of words, the genre, the number, etc. to convey the meaning the writer wants to. They are unluckily not the BEST way to learn grammar!
But I can suggest Beatles' songs. They are the exception.

See you around!

Cecilia