Complete the following sentences choosing the correct future tense form for the verb in brackets, and practise lessons learnt in The English Tenses Practical Grammar Guide. There are many possible future tense forms to choose from, including:
- simple present
- present continuous
- will-future
- going to-future
- will+present perfect
- will+present perfect continuous
Future Tenses Exercise
- The train __________ (to arrive) at 12:30.
- We __________ (to have) dinner at a seaside restaurant on Sunday.
- It __________(to snow) in Brighton tomorrow evening.
- On Friday at 8 o’clock I __________ (to meet) my friend.
- Paul __________ (to fly) to London on Monday morning.
- Wait! I __________ (to drive) you to the station.
- The English lesson __________ (to start) at 8:45.
- Are you still writing your essay? If you __________ (to finish) by 4pm, we can go for a walk.
- I __________ (to see) my mother in April.
- Look at the clouds – it __________ (to rain) in a few minutes.
- When they __________ (to get) married in March, they __________ (to be) together for six years.
- You’re carrying too much. I __________ (to open) the door for you.
- Do you think the teacher __________ (to mark) our homework by Monday morning?
- When I __________ (to see) you tomorrow, I __________ (show) you my new book.
- After you __________ (to take) a nap, you __________ (to feel) a lot better
- I’m sorry but you need to stay in the office until you __________ (to finish) your work.
- I __________ (to buy) the cigarettes from the corner shop when it __________ (to open).
- I __________ (to let) you know the second the builders __________ (to finish) decorating.
- Before we __________ (to start) our lesson, we __________ (to have) a review.
- We __________ (to wait) in the shelter until the bus __________ (to come).
- I’m very sorry, Dr. Jones __________ (not be) back in the clinic until 2pm.
- This summer, I __________ (to live) in Brighton for four years.
- I don’t think you __________ (to have) any problems when you land in Boston.
- The baby should be due soon, next week she __________ (to be) pregnant for nine months.
- By the time we get home, they __________ (to play) football for 30 minutes.
- In three years I __________ (to live) in a different country.
- When you __________ (to get) off the train, I __________ (to wait) for you by the ticket machine.
- __________ (to take) your children with you to France?
- This time next week I __________ (ski) in Switzerland!
- Now I __________ (to check) my answers.
Future Tenses Exercise Suggested Answers
- The train arrives at 12:30.
- We are going to have dinner at a seaside restaurant on Sunday.
- It will snow in Brighton tomorrow evening. (or is going to snow)
- On Friday at 8 o’clock I am meeting my friend. (or am going to meet)
- Paul is flying to London on Monday morning.
- Wait! I will drive you to the station.
- The English lesson starts at 8:45.
- Are you still writing your essay? If you finish by 4pm, we can go for a walk.
- I am going to see my mother in April.
- Look at the clouds – it is going to rain in a few minutes. (or will rain)
- When they get married in March, they will have been together for six years.
- You’re carrying too much. I will open the door for you.
- Do you think the teacher will have marked our homework by Monday morning?
- When I see you tomorrow, I will show you my new book.
- After you take a nap, you will feel a lot better. (or have taken)
- I’m sorry but you need to stay in the office until you have finished your work. (or finish)
- I will buy the cigarettes from the corner shop when it opens.
- I will let you know the second the builders have finished decorating. (or finish)
- Before we start our lesson, we are going to have a review. (or will have)
- We will wait in the shelter until the bus comes.
- I’m very sorry, Dr. Jones won’t be back in the clinic until 2pm.
- This summer, I will have been living in Brighton for four years.
- I don’t think you will have any problems when you land in Boston. (or are going to have)
- The baby should be due soon, next week she will have been pregnant for nine months.
- By the time we get home, they will have been playing football for 30 minutes.
- In three years I am going to live in a different country. (or will live)
- When you get off the train, I will be waiting for you by the ticket machine.
- Are you going to take your children with you to France?
- This time next week I will be skiing in Switzerland!
- Now I will check my answers. (or am going to)
If you enjoyed this exercise, I’ve now produced a similar, second future tenses exercise, here. You can also find many more exercises in the book below.
Want to master the English tenses?
Learn all the rules with The English Tenses Practical Grammar Guide, and practise them with The English Tenses Exercise Book, which contains 160 exercises.
please! Can you leave a difference of will and going to future because, sometimes it’s difficult to answer and you can get confuse
Hi Elsa – though it’s not always a hard rule, one way to decide is if a future event is known or planned in advance (going to) vs recently decided (will). There’s a bit on that here: https://englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/use-future-simple-planned-unplanned-events/
Can we say
I will be waiting in the shelter until the bus comes.
On Friday at 8 O’Clock, I will be meeting my friend.
With apologies, my initial reply to this was brief and unhelpful – both of these sentences are grammatically correct but would require a particular context to be used. Most likely in both cases the simple future would be more appropriate (“I will wait” / “I will meet/am meeting”) – unless you wish to discuss the meeting being in progress at 8 or the process of waiting for the bus (usually to discuss the duration). Though ultimately it depends on context, so feel free to share more information about the sentences and what you wish to express.
Simon also wrote this explanation: these sentences are not grammatically bad, but if placed in their most probable context they are deviant. In a probable context the first would much more naturally be ‘I will wait in the shelter until the bus comes’ (i.e. not merely a prediction but a declaration of intention), and the second would more naturally be ‘I’m meeting my friend on Friday at eight (o’clock)’ (i.e. not only expressing a declaration of intention but announcing that this meeting has been arranged with ‘my friend’).
II don’t understand when do I use going to and when I use the present continuous both are for personal arrangements in the future
Hi, sorry for the very slow response; there’s flexibility here. Generally I’d say the key difference is that the going to form carries a little more emotional emphasis, e.g. to show intention or a belief, where the present continuous merely shows a plan, but in practice they can often be interchangeable.
Can we use “it will be snowing” in sentence no. 3? I saw a similar example somewhere, and it said I should use “it will be snowing” instead of “it will snow”.
Thanks
Hi Milan,
Yes, you can, but more commonly we refer to snowing or raining as an overall act of weather in the simple tense for the past and future, while we’d use the continuous to refer to the ongoing rain/snow. So we’d be more likely to use the continuous if we’re emphasising that it is happening, rather than the nature of the weather, if that makes sense (for example, it would be appropriate in a context of “You shouldn’t drive tomorrow, as it will be snowing and you won’t be able to see well.”)
Phil
choose the right form of future : in this sentence ” I found a good deal on a booking site, I ……. (travel) to Thailand this summer” should we use “I’m going to travel” or “I will Travel” or something else
It could be going to, will or a present continuous form depending on the context. Typically “will” would be used if the discovery/decision was more recent, while “I’m going to” would suggest a more determined/concrete plan, and “I’m travelling” would be a more casual comment/plan.
A nice worksheet first I was making mistakes but I understood the concept after seeing the answers.
Is it true that english only has twelve grammar tenses? and is there any difference between american and british english when it comes to the usage of the english grammar tenses? if so, which tenses?
Hi Tim,
The way we describe the tenses can very much depend on our purpose and particular schools of thinking – some grammars define it as twelve tenses (as I present in my own book) to show the 3 times, past, present and future, and their four forms, but others would describe this as two or three tenses (past and present as the only ‘morphological’ tense, and future as a tense using auxiliaries), with four ‘aspects’ each. On the other extreme, there are ways to describe other particular functions as tenses, too, so it really depends on how much detail we wish to go into. When it comes to British vs US, there are differences, yes – most generally it comes between how we use simple vs continuous or how we use the perfect tenses – though these will also vary within the countries so I wouldn’t venture to give a definitive list. The differences aren’t especially dramatic, though, and shouldn’t have a huge impact on meaning; it will often occur when we might consider the tense use fairly flexible anyway.
so essentially there isn’t any difference in terms of the functions of each tense. but more of the situation in which we use the tense, that differentiates british and US?
For instance, while british tend to use present perfect for actions that happened recently, but americans prefer using the simple past for such cases, but still its more of a choice rather than an actual technical difference (meaning to say for example that both british and american english recognise that simple past and present perfect can be used for actions that happenend in the past, however recent that past is, but that its only for british english that prefers to employ the use of present perfect for recent past actions, but in american english, they tend to use simple past – still, technically both simple past and present perfect can be used for past actions, so it really boils down more to a style/preference rather than actual difference in defining the uses/functions of each tense)?
Hi Tim, I’m not an expert on American linguistics so I’d hesitate to give any absolutes myself, but yes I would essentially say that’s the case. The crossover in such areas tends to be where within each culture the meaning will still be clear, as you say a matter that reflects preference over a difference in meaning. Likewise Americans might use a continuous tense for states/feelings where British would use the present simple, but the understanding in both situations would be clear (that it is a temporary state). This likely varies not just between American and British usage but within the countries themselves.
Why do we use “will” instead of “be going to” in sentence number 21? Don’t we know that the doctor is going to be at that time??
Hi Alvaro,
This one is rather flexible – you’re correct as it’s a planned event we might use ‘be going to’, but ‘will’ would be more natural according to the rule that it has an immediate impact on the present moment, in this case as it affects the person who is concerned with when he will be back. That said, either/or would be acceptable here.
i still don’t understand when to use will and going to, but this Future tenses exercise help me to get through this. thanks …
I dont think these are the correct answers these are a mix of futere+Present tense please lemme know
Hi Joe, as it says in the intro the future tense can be formed with the present simple and the present continuous for future meaning, so the exercise has taken some examples of this into account.
Question 22. Could you also say, I will have lived?
Hi Candace, yes you could and it would make sense; the continuous would be more appropriate as an ongoing/temporary experience so the choice might depend on if you want to emphasise that it is a complete period of time or an ongoing activity that you consider will later change. In practice, there would probably be little difference and some speakers might choose either option, though.
Thank you. I understand.
The punctuation of sentence 21 is faulty (to give the intended meaning and intonation, there should be a comma after the word ‘sorry’), the word ‘practise’ when used as a verb (as it appears twice on this page) should be so spelt, not ‘practice’ this side of the Atlantic anyway, and most importantly it is very misleading and confusing for students, as is evident from Candace’s question, to give only one ‘correct answer’ for 20 of the 30 sentences, when in reality (in all but about six cases) one or more alternative verb forms would also be possible, depending of course on the context and the likely situation.
You’ve now added the missing comma to sentence 21 and you’ve corrected one of the instances of misspelt ‘practise’ but for some reason not the other (‘Complete the following sentences choosing the correct future tense form for the verb in brackets, and practice lessons learnt in The English Tenses Practical Grammar Guide’), unless ‘practice’ here is meant to be a noun being used adjectivally, which seems hardly credible. Keep trying!
Thanks for your feedback, I have made those changes now!
Why the second one is “are going to have” but not ” are having”
Hi Ann, this could be either, you are correct – depending on the context we might choose one or another version of the future simple (will, going to, or present continuous). Though the important thing here is more to get the difference between the future simple and the other tenses.
why there is not given writing option?
I’m not sure I understand the question, do you mean why you can’t write the answers on the page? It’s quite a basic setup.
Why is the present simple used in sentence 8?
Hi Sam, as a general rule it’s a first conditional, where we use a present simple ‘if’ clause for a future possibility, combined with the future clause for the result.
In response to Vidya: Can we say I will be waiting in the shelter until the bus comes. On Friday at 8 O’Clock, I will be meeting my friend, Phil Williams says; Yes, those are fine (though we don’t need a capital letter for o’clock). Vidya’s question evidently means: are these sentences ‘good English’ i.e. not classifiable as ‘bad grammar’. All this kind of question-and-answer indicates to me is how valueless it is to students to discuss sentences taken out of context: yes, these sentences are not grammatically bad, but if placed in their most probable context they are deviant. In a probable context the first would much more naturally be ‘I will wait in the shelter until the bus comes’ (i.e. not merely a prediction but a declaration of intention), and the second would more naturally be ‘I’m meeting my friend on Friday at eight (o’clock)’ (i.e. not only expressing a declaration of intention but announcing that this meeting has been arranged with ‘my friend’). ‘My friend’ is, incidentally, a rather unnatural expression in English: if what is meant is ‘my boyfriend/girlfriend’ then it is more natural to say so, otherwise (unless the speaker really has only one friend) an expression like ‘a friend of mine’ is more usual. Does the answer ‘Yes, those are fine’ mean that the future continuous versions of these sentences are just as valid as the ‘correct’ versions? If not, what does it mean?
Hallo. How often is used the Future Perfect Continuous Tense?
It’s quite rare, I would say; it’s mostly just to demonstrate a time duration to a point in the future, which is not something we do very often.
question 26, can i use will be living? ques. 28, does “are u taking”works? and for ques. 30 can i use am checking?
Hi Chloe,
Sorry for the slow response. They are good questions, which provide quite subtle/nuanced answers.
26 – you can but it would change the meaning slightly; “I will live” puts more emphasis on being determined to do it, while “I will be living” would typically mean you expect to be in process of it (more a neutral fact).
28 – yes, you could say “are you taking”, again with a slight difference that “are you going to take” / “will take” would suggest a determination/intention whereas “are you taking” is a more neutral plan (i.e. it’s established). In both these cases, however, there may be little real difference in how they are interpreted.
30 – no, this one is different, because we have “now” – “I am checking” would mean you are in the process of it, whereas “will/am going to check” suggest you are about to start.