Future tenses

jakubikF   Sun Mar 26, 2006 11:29 am GMT
I have a simple question. How often do English native speakers use future tenses like Future Perfect, Future Perfect Countinous. Generaly ppl learn them at school but I'd like to know if they are really commonly used or if English people use more often Future Simple, Present Simple or Present Simple Countinous instead.
C6269LA   Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:04 pm GMT
There is actually no such thing as a future tense in English.

You are refering to the use of the construction "will/shall+infinitive(base verb form)" to express future time as in:

I will go

I will be going

These are quite commonly used. But, as you point out, the present tense is often employed to indicate future action - but it must have some additional qualifier to do so:

I'm going (present time)

I'm going tomorrow (future time)
Guest   Sun Mar 26, 2006 5:21 pm GMT
"Generaly ppl learn them at school"

People aren't taught any tenses at school in the US, at least... Everyone already knows all of them.
jakubikF   Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:26 pm GMT
""Generaly ppl learn them at school"

People aren't taught any tenses at school in the US, at least... Everyone already knows all of them. "

Of course I thought about ppl who learn English not as a native language.

The point is we're tought the constructions like :
By the year 2050 ppl will have had a flying cars - here is e.g. Future Perfect

According to this example - how often do you use such tenses or are they replaced by a future use of present tenses?
Guest   Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:48 pm GMT
"By the year 2050 ppl will have had a flying cars - here is e.g. Future Perfect "

It would be better to say "By 2050, people will have flying cars."

This is a better example of when to use the future perfect tense.

"By tomorrow, the criminal will have already been executed."

The difference between the two situations is the completion of the action. In the first case, the action is not completed. People still have flying cars in 2050, presumably. In the second case, the action is completed. He is no longer being executed, and is now dead. That is why you use a perfect tense.
Uriel   Mon Mar 27, 2006 4:23 am GMT
Well, in real life, yes, we use all of our tenses. Did you think we didn't? It's not like some are more popular or common than others, some are just more appropriate to a given situation than others. But none are falling out of use that I know of.
Jim   Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:11 am GMT
C6269LA writes "There is actually no such thing as a future tense in English." Guess what (s)he's right.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/verbs/tense.htm
http://www.gabrielatos.com/TTA.htm

How often do we use future perfect, future perfect countinous, etc.? As often as we need them. Uriel's right to write "It's not like some are more popular or common than others, some are just more appropriate to a given situation than others." However, you might find that certain situations are less likely to arise. A situation in which you'd need future perfect countinous, for example, would not be all that common.
TTA   Mon Apr 03, 2006 1:52 pm GMT
The problem is, how will you define the future time?
Must Tomorrow be a future?
How about Next Minute?
How about Next Second?
How about Next Millisecond?

If I can say in Simple Present "Tomorrow I see my boss", does this prove Tomorrow is not a future time?
If you depend on Will/Shall, does "He will be in his office now" prove Now is a future time?

English users don't know how to define the future, so they conclude there is no future tense. Or can you tell us how to define the future?
Uriel   Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:51 pm GMT
We define future just fine. The future is any time that is not in the present or the past. That DOES include tomorrow, the next minute, the next second, and the next millisecond.

The fact that we can, in some tenses, use the same verbs to talk about the future that we also use for the present doesn't mean that we have no concept of the future, or that we do not contextually understand when the action is taking place. English adjectives don't make the gender distinctions that other languages like French or Spanish do; that doesn't mean that we don't have any concept of masculinity or femininity. The same applies to our tenses.
greg   Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:37 pm GMT
Uriel : « English adjectives don't make the gender distinctions that other languages like French or Spanish do »

Pas si vite !

salesman — saleswoman
hunter — huntress
Guest   Mon Apr 03, 2006 11:10 pm GMT
Salesman/salesmen and hunter/huntress are nouns, not adjectives. Allez, oust, vite !
TTA   Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:22 am GMT
<< We define future just fine. The future is any time that is not in the present or the past. That DOES include tomorrow, the next minute, the next second, and the next millisecond.>>

Got you! If next millisecond is future, where is the present time?
Kirk   Tue Apr 04, 2006 7:35 am GMT
>>....<<English adjectives don't make the gender distinctions that other languages like French or Spanish do>>

Pas si vite !

salesman — saleswoman
hunter — huntress...<<

But those aren't adjectives :)
Uriel   Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:57 pm GMT
Got me, what? Present time is now. THIS millisecond, not the next one. It's like a mathematical point; one dimensional, with a location but no size.
amy   Wed Apr 05, 2006 6:21 am GMT
Can you tell me how to write a good composion ?If you know ,please tell me Iwould thank you .thouk you very much.