Future Perfect Continuous Tense

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The future perfect continuous is an English verb form used to describe an action that starts in the future and continue up to another time or action in the future. This can be a time or date, or it can be another action. Often a duration is specified for the verb in the future perfect continuous. This verb form alone does not specify if the action will continue after that point.

This is a very rare verb form. Less than .1% of English verbs are in the future perfect continuous. Do not use this verb tense unless you are absolutely certain that it is necessary.

Note that continuous and progressive are just different words for this same thing, so some people call this tense the future perfect progressive.

Keep reading to learn the rules and reasons for using and forming the future perfect continuous, including loads of charts and examples!

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Using the Future Perfect Continuous

Perfect continuous verbs are used to describe an action that has been in progress before another action or point in time, often with a duration specified. With the future perfect continuous, that time is in the future. This can be a time or date (next summer, Saturday at 5, in 2050) or it can be another action in the future.

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Chart for Future Perfect Continuous Tense In English

Here are some example sentences:

By the time I finish my Ph.D., I will have been studying for over 20 years!

Monday is my work anniversary. I'm going to have been working here for a decade!

In these examples, the perfect continuous action (will have been studying, going to have been working) is presented with a duration (over 20 years, a decade) and another action (I finish) or point in time in the future (Monday).

Form

Formula with Will

To form the future perfect continuous, we use the future perfect form of the helping verb be—will have been or going to have been—and the continuous form of the main verb. No matter what the subject is, the verb form is

subject + will have been + VERBing

Conjugation

Here are conjugation tables showing the verb work in the future perfect continuous with will.

Future Perfect Continuous Tense Verb Conjugation with Will

	Singular		Plural
1st person	I	will have been working.	we	will have been working.
2nd person	you	will have been working.	you	will have been working.
3rd person	he	will have been working.	they	will have been working.
	she	will have been working.
	it	will have been working.

Formula with Going to

Because forming the future tenses with going to is more complex and wordy, we almost never form the future perfect continuous with going to. In the rare situation that we might use it, the form is

subject + am/is/are + going to have been + VERBing

Conjugation

Here is a conjugation table:

Future Perfect Continuous Tense Verb Conjugation with Will

	Singular		Plural
1st person	I	am going to have been working.	we	are going to have been working.
2nd person	you	are going to have been working.	you	are going to have been working.
3rd person	he	is going to have been working.	they	are going to have been working.
	she	is going to have been working.
	it	is going to have been working.

Other Forms

Questions

In the future perfect continuous, you have more than one helping verb. To make a question, move the subject after the first helping verb, will, but before the second helping verb, have. Again, please keep in mind that these forms are extremely rare, and these examples sound very unnatural in English; we share them only to help students understand the patterns of the language.

At what point will you have been acting for 20 years?

When will they have been playing this game for too long?

Negative Sentences

You can form a negative by inserting not between the first helping verb will and the second helping verb have. For example:

In January, we will not have been living in California for 20 years.

But notice that the negative form is ambiguous. It is unclear which part of the sentence we are negating. Are we living someplace other than California? Has it just not been 20 years yet? This is a good reason to avoid making negative sentences in the future perfect continuous.

The Passive Voice

If for some reason you need to make a passive sentence in the future perfect continuous, use be in the future perfect continuous (will have been being) and then the perfect form of the main verb. As you can see in the following example, this is awkward and confusing

Next year the house will have been being renovated for 5 years.

We do not recommend making future perfect continuous passive sentences.

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Most Common English Verb Tenses

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English Verb Form Frequency

We spend a lot of time in English class studying all the different verb tenses. I can't tell you how many times my students have asked me, "How often do we really use the future perfect progressive?" My answer is usually that it is very rare, but it's meaningful, and it can be helpful to understanding how the past perfect progressive works as well. But that really is a good question:

How often do we use each verb tense in English?

This is an important question because there are 12 different verb tenses in English, and you want to study strategically, learning the most valuable ones!

Let's start by saying that there is no one answer. As you may know, the English we use for speaking is different from the English we use in writing. There are many different situations to be speaking or writing in, and in each of those situations we would see different verb frequencies. Even from person to person, our individual speaking style might lead one person to use, for example, the present tense more often than another person. We can, however, observe some useful patterns.

The 5 Most Commonly used English Verb Tenses

If you are looking for a quick answer, here it is:

5 Most Common English Verb Tenses

#	Tense	Frequency
1	Simple Present	57.51%
2	Simple Past	19.7%
3	Simple Future	8.5%
4	Present Perfect	6.0%
5	Present Continuous	5.1%

Some quick insights from the top 5:

• The simple present accounts for more than half of the verbs used in English speech

• The 5 most commonly used verb tenses total up to over 95% of usage

• The simple tenses are the top three verb tenses

For a more in-depth analysis, read on!

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The Source Material

For this post, we looked at an interesting research study by Krámský (1969). We have also updated this article to include findings from Alzuhairy (2016). Krámský took several different samples of three different styles (or registers) of English—novels, plays, and specialized (academic and technical) texts. He analyzed 20,000-word samples from each text, counting each form of each verb, and sharing all his data.

The results are complex, and grouped in ways that might not be too helpful, but I have tried to regroup them and show them in charts that are more useful for language teachers and learners.

Before we look at some of those patterns, I want to include a caveat, or warning. When compared to all the language in the world, Krámský's sample is actually very, very small. Ideally, we would get this information from a larger base of language called a corpus, like the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Unfortunately, information of this kind is currently difficult (if not impossible) to get from most corpora. Still, the general proportions and patterns that Krámský found should be fairly accurate. The one other warning is that the texts Krámský used as samples of spoken (or colloquial) English are actually plays, written to sound like spoken English. It is very possible that examples of actual spoken English would be different from the language found in the plays.

Ok, now let's get to the fun stuff!

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Verb Tense Frequency

First, I've broken each text type down by verb tense: past, present, and future:

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As you can see, there are some big differences between different text types. Spoken English is mostly in the present tense (68.9%), but fiction is mostly past tense (57.6%). Specialized texts overwhelmingly use the present tense (87.1%).

This makes a lot of sense. In fiction, we generally tell stories that take place before: first this happened, then that happened, then that happened. When we speak, though, we talk a lot more about what we think and feel and like, what we do, who people are, our experiences and all of these things are expressed in the present tense. In specialized texts, we are often writing about things that are generally true, and here again, we use the present tense a lot.

The future tense is less used in all text types: 9% in speech, 2% in fiction, and 4% in specialized texts.

This table breaks down each tense by frequency in all three text types:

5 Most Common English Verb Tenses

Tense	Speech	Frequency	Specialized
Present	68.9%	40.3%	87.1%
Past	22.4%	57.6%%	8.7%
Future	8.7%	2.1%	4.3%

Verb Aspect Frequency

The tenses are easy enough—past, present, future—but the really tricky thing about learning English verbs is the four aspects: simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive. Thankfully, there isn't as much difference between the different styles of English when it comes to aspect. Take a look:

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The charts look generally the same. In every style of English, the simple aspect—simple present, simple past, and simple future—makes up over 85% of verbs that we use. The lesser-used aspects all fall in the same order: after simple, it's perfect, then progressive, then perfect progressive gets a tiny little sliver of use. Biber and Reppen (2002) confirm this pattern, observing that the simple aspect is “more than 20 times as common as progressive in conversation.” (p. 204, cited in Alzuhairy (2016).

Alzuhairy (2016) studied academic texts in particular. The same general pattern applies, but simple present only accounts for about 50% of verbs in Alzuhairy’s findings.

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Most Used Tenses and Aspects

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5 verb forms make up 96% of all verbs in spoken English.

I think this may be one of the most useful insights from Krámský's work for teachers and students. Although there are 12 tense/aspect combinations in English, 5 of these cover around 96% of spoken English.

Notice that the simple present alone accounts for 57% of verbs. Next is the simple past (19.7%), then simple future (8.5%), followed by present perfect (6.0%) and then present progressive (5.1%). If you want to know which verb tenses to learn first, these five will definitely give you the most bang for your buck!

The remaining 7 tense/aspect combinations are each under 1.5% of spoken English verbs. Of course, it is valuable to learn all the combinations, but if you want to prioritize the most useful verb tenses, this should be helpful.

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Active and Passive Voice

The passive voice is another of those constructions that challenges students and leads to the question, how useful is this? Well, again, Krámský's work gives us some idea how useful they are. Here is a breakdown of active and passive constructions in the three registers: 

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The vast majority of verbs in English are in the active voice.

It is not surprising that the vast majority of verbs are active. The most important takeaways that I see are these: 97.5% of verbs in spoken English are active, but the passive voice is much more common in specialized and academic texts, in which only 82.2% of sentences are active.

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Complete Table of Most Used Verb Tenses in English

Most Common English Verb Tenses

#	Tense	Frequency
1	Simple Present	57.51%
2	Simple Past	19.7%
3	Simple Future	8.5%
4	Present Perfect	6.0%
5	Present Continuous	5.1%
6	Past Continuous	1.4%
7	Past Perfect	1.2%
8	Present Perfect Continuous	0.7%
9	Future Perfect	0.2%
10	Future Continuous	>0.1%
11	Past Perfect Continuous	>0.1%
12	Future Perfect Continuous	>0.1%

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Contractions with Two Meanings

Lots of contractions!

Contractions are two words put together in a shorter form. We use lots of contractions in English: isn't (is not) doesn't (does not), didn't (did not), can't (cannot), won't (will not). I'm (I am), you're (you are), we're (we are). There are tons of them!

Confusing contractions

Apostrophe -s

But let's (let us!) talk about some tricky contractions. Contractions with apostrophe -s ('s) and apostrophe -d ('d) are difficult because they have two meanings. Think about it: what does he's mean? Look at these two sentences:

He's studying English.

He's visited England.

In the first sentence, he's means he is. In the second sentence, he's means he has. When we see 's it can mean either has or is. 

Apostrophe -d

I'd been working for hours.

I'd like a glass of champagne.

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Future Perfect Tense

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The future perfect is an English verb form used to describe actions that will be complete at a particular moment in the future. This can be a time or date, or it can be another action.

This is not a common verb form. Less than .1% of English verbs are in the future continuous.

Keep reading to learn the rules and reasons for using and forming the future continuous, including loads of charts and examples!

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Using the Future Perfect

Perfect verb tenses are used to describe an action that is complete before another action or point in time. With the future perfect, that time is in the future. This can be a time or date (next weekend, tomorrow at 5, on November 3rd) or it can be another action in the future.

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Chart for Future Perfect Tense In English

Here are some example sentences:

The skyscraper isn't completely built yet, but when I go in June, they will have finished it.

You can come over at 8. We will have eaten dinner by then.

In these examples, the perfect action (will have finished, will have eaten ) will be complete before the other specific action (when I go in June) or time (at 8).

Forming the Future Perfect

Formula with Will

To form the future perfect, we use the future form of the helping verb have—will have—and the perfect form of the main verb. No matter what the subject is, the verb form is:

subject + will have + perfect VERB

Conjugation

That means the conjugation chart is really easy!

Future Perfect Tense Verb Conjugation with Will

	Singular		Plural
1st person	I	will have worked.	we	will have worked.
2nd person	you	will have worked.	you	will have worked.
3rd person	he	will have worked.	they	will have worked.
	she	will have worked.
	it	will have worked.

Formula with Going to

Because forming the future tenses with be going to is more complex and wordy, we almost never form the future perfect with be going to. In the rare situation that we might use it, the formula is:

subject + am/is/are + going to have + perfect VERB

Conjugation

Here is a conjugation table for the verb work with going to.

Future Perfect Tense Verb Conjugation with Going To

	Singular		Plural
1st person	I	am going to have worked.	we	are going to have worked.
2nd person	you	are going to have worked.	you	are going to have worked.
3rd person	he	is going to have worked.	they	are going to have worked.
	she	is going to have worked.
	it	is going to have worked.

Other Forms

Questions

In the future perfect, you have more than one helping verb. To make a question, move the subject after the first helping verb, will, but before the second helping verb, have.

Will you have eaten by 8?

Will they have finished the construction by the end of the year?

Will she have completed her degree by that time?

What will they have accomplished with this senseless war?

When will they have made a decision?

Negative Sentences

To form a negative, insert not between the first helping verb will and the second helping verb have. Here are some examples.

I will not have eaten by 8.

They will not have finished the construction by the end of the year.

She will not have completed her degree yet.

The Passive Voice

Making a passive sentence in the future perfect is extremely complex and extremely rare. We do not recommend making future perfect passive sentences. If for some reason you do need to make a passive sentence in the future perfect, use be in the future perfect (will have been) and then the perfect form of the main verb. 

The package will have been delivered by Friday afternoon.

All the food will have been eaten by the time we get there.

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Passive Voice

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What is the passive voice?

The passive voice is a way of expressing yourself in English (some people say passive form or passive tense, but the correct term is voice).

Active vs. Passive Voice

There are two voices in English grammar: active and passive. Voice is different from tense. There are 12 verb tenses in English, and any of these can be either active or passive (though some of these combinations almost never occur in actual usage).

Grammatical voice is a way of showing the relationship between action expressed a verb and the subject of that verb. When the subject does the action, the active voice is generally used. When the subject receives or undergoes the action, the passive voice is generally used.

The vast majority of the time, we use the active voice: over 95% of verbs in speech and fiction are active, and over 80% in academic and specialized texts.

This article explains the grammar of the passive voice in English, with lots of examples in each verb tense and aspect.

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Why Do We Use the Passive Voice in English?

There are many different reasons that we use the passive voice. Again, the overall effect of using the passive voice is to focus on the person or thing that receives the action (the receiver or target), rather than the person or thing that does the action (the agent). But there are many reasons we might want to do this.

Because the receiver is the topic:

I just talked to my friend. He was accepted to Harvard!

Because the receiver is more important to the situation than the agent:

Katherine was hit by a car.

Because the agent is obvious:

The auditorium was built last year.

Because you want to be vague or avoid mentioning the agent:

I have to tell you something, Dad. The window was broken.

Because there is no known agent:

The car was stolen sometime during the night.

To create a more formal or academic style:

The answer has been sought by scientists for decades.

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Forming the Passive Voice

When you want to transform a sentence from active form to the passive form: there are two main things to pay attention to.

First, we move the direct object to the subject position, before the verb. Simple. You can say that the object gets promoted to the role of subject, and the subject can be demoted to a prepositional phrase (including this is optional).

The second change is trickier: We also need to change the form of the verb. We need to put the main verb in the past participle. Be becomes been. Do or did becomes done. Go or went becomes gone. Cook becomes cooked. In a passive sentence, the main verb is always in the past participle.

Then we need to insert a be verb in whatever tense we are using before the main verb. If the sentence is in the simple past, use be in the simple past: was. If the sentence is in the simple future, use be in the simple future: will be. If the sentence is in the present perfect, use be in the present perfect: has been. If the sentence is in the present perfect, use be in the present perfect: is being.

The formula for a verb in the passive voice is [conjugated be verb] + [main verb in past participle].

The following section contains examples of every verb tense transformed into the passive voice.

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The Get Passive

An alternate way to form the passive uses get as an auxiliary instead of be. With certain verbs, the get passive is very common. These include: get married, get hired, get fired, get picked up, get dropped off, get chosen, get arrested, get accepted.

In some situations, the get passive feels less formal than the be passive.

In some verb tenses, the auxiliary be is used to make the action continuous. When these tenses are made passive we still need to add another auxiliary. This means placing been and being together, which sounds awkward. For example the active sentence Trainees have been observing them. becomes the passive They have been being observed by trainees. Using the get passive can make sentences like this sound better: They have been getting observed by trainees.

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Examples of Passive Voice for Each Verb Tense

Below you will find examples of every verb tense in the English passive voice. Some of these are so rare that we never use them. These are noted.

Simple Present

Spanish is spoken around the world

New species are discovered all the time.

Simple Past

Some money was found on Second Street.

The mosque was erected in 1873.

Simple Future

The old hospital will be demolished next month.

If it rains the concert will be cancelled.

Present Continuous

My car is being fixed.

Other options are being explored.

Past Continuous

The house was being painted so we couldn't touch anything.

Many new homes were being built at the time.

Future Continuous

I think a cure for cancer will have been developed by 2030.

This form is very unusual and awkward.

Present Perfect

The children have been given their dinner.

A decision has been made.

Past Perfect

She had been given a number of options already.

We had been told that the train would be there soon.

Future Perfect

By the end of this year, over a million lives will have been saved thanks to your donations.

*This form is very unusual and awkward.

Present Perfect Continuous

I have been getting sent from one doctor to the next all day long!

*This form is very unusual and awkward.

Past Perfect Continuous

We learned that we had been getting told the wrong information all year.

*This form is very unusual and awkward.

Future Perfect Continuous

This time tomorrow, the we will be getting driven to the airport.

*This form is very unusual and awkward.

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Intransitive Verbs and the Passive

Remember, when we transform an active sentence into the passive, we are taking the direct object and moving it to the subject position. This means we must have a direct object to transform a sentence into the passive voice.

Transitive verbs have direct objects. Intransitive verbs do not have direct objects. This means that intransitive verbs cannot be transformed into the passive voice.

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Imperative Mood and the Passive

How do you say “Shut the door.” in the passive? Learners try to quiz each other with questions like this.

The simplest answer is that you cannot put an imperative sentence in the passive voice in modern English because the passive voice requires an explicit subject and the imperative leaves out the subject.

Some people suggest that Let the door be shut. Is the passive form of Shut the door. This is a close workaround since it is an imperative sentence, and the verb shut is now passive. It is not, however, a direct transformation of the original sentence into the passive, because it introduces an entirely new verb: the causative let.

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When Should You Use the Passive Voice?

This is a tricky question. Many inexperienced writers will overuse the passive voice to sound more formal or academic. This has led to the bad advice that you should “avoid the passive voice.”

There is no real answer except that you should use the passive voice when there is a reason to use it. Don’t just use it to sound smart. Good writing is always about making choices. Pay attention to how and when good writers choose to use it, and try to do the same!

3 Types of -ing Verb

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Ready for some challenging academic grammar?

English grammar can be difficult because sometimes the same word works differently in different situations. This is true for -ing verbs, which can do three different things.  

Let's look at the 3 types:

Three types of -ing verb

CONTINUOUS VERBS

The man is walking.

This is the most basic one: a present continuous verb. The subject in the sentence is "man" and "is walking" tells us what he is doing right now. If you see an -ing verb after a be verb (am, is, are, was, were), it is probably a continuous verb.

Another name for continuous verbs is progressive verbs.  Continuous and progressive mean the same thing.

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PARTICIPIAL ADJECTIVES

The walking man lives with my friend Paul.

The man walking across the street lives with my friend Paul.

In both of these sentences, walking  works like an adjective, not a verb. Walking describes the man, and the verb in the sentence is lives. When an -ing verb describes a noun, we call it a participial adjective. Participial adjectives can come before or after the noun, but it is more common to put them after the noun. 

Read a little more about participial adjectives here.

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GERUNDS

The man likes walking.

In this sentence, we have a subject: the man. We have a verb: likes . What is the -ing verb here? It's the thing that the man likes. What does he like? Walking. Walking is the object of like. What are some other things you can like? Sports, travel, English. All nouns. Object of verbs are nouns, so walking is acting as a noun here. That's what a gerund is: an -ing verb that works like a noun. 

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Pronouns in English

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What is a Pronoun?

Pronouns are one of the 9 parts of speech in English grammar. A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. Pronouns are important in English. They are some of the first words we learn: I, you, he, she, it. There are different kinds of pronouns for different situations: subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns. Instead of Sara, we can say she. Instead of those guys, we can say them. Instead of the sun, we can say it.

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Why do we use pronouns?

One reason that we use pronouns is to avoid repetition. Think about this example:

Look at this beautiful table. The table is gorgeous. The table has a red top and the table's legs are steel. I really want to buy the table.

The table, the table, the table, the table—aaaaaaah. We try to avoid this kind of repetition in English. Instead of table, table, table, table, we usually say table once. After that first time, we use a pronoun, like it. This next example is more typical of how we speak in English:

Look at this beautiful table. It is gorgeous. It has a red top and its legs are steel. I really want to buy it.

Simpler and cleaner! That's why we use pronouns.

So a pronoun can take the place of a noun. But there are also some important differences between how we use nouns and pronouns. For instance, we don’t usually use a determiner before a pronoun: we say the table, but we never say the it. We say my friend, but we don’t say my him. We also don’t usually use adjectives before pronouns. We can say the red car, but it would be very strange to say the red it.

Now let's look at the five different kinds of personal pronouns:

Subject Pronouns

Object Pronouns

Possessive Pronouns

Possessive Determiners

Reflexive Pronouns

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English Personal Pronouns

In English, we use different pronouns to show grammatical person, gender, and singular/plural distinctions.

For example, if I am talking about myself, we call this the first person.  If I are talking about myself alone, this is singular (only one person). Singular first person pronouns include I, me, mine, etc.

If I am talking about a group of people that includes me, this is the first person plural (more than one person). Plural first person pronouns include we, us, ours, etc. 

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English Pronoun Chart

Second person pronouns are used to talk about the person you are speaking to. These include you, yours, yourself, etc. You can be both singular and plural in English.

Third person pronouns are used to talk about people who are not either the speaker or the listener. They include the third person singular pronouns (like he, she, it) and third person singular pronouns (like they, them, etc.).

For inanimate objects—things that are not people—we use it, its, and itself.

They/Them Pronouns

When we use third person pronouns, we often distinguish between genders. For example, she, her, and hers are often used to talk about women, and he, him, and his are often used to talk about men. They, them, and their can be used as gender-neutral pronouns. We can use these either because we don't want or need to specify a gender, or because someone goes by non-gendered or nonbinary pronouns.

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SUBJECT PRONOUNS

The first pronouns we teach are usually subject pronouns. The subject is often the noun right before the verb. Almost every sentence has a subject. Generally, the subject of the sentence is the person or thing that does the verb or makes the verb happen. 

The tiger sleeps a lot.

In the example above, the verb is sleeps, and the subject is tiger. Who sleeps? The tiger does. The subject usually tells us who or what does the action. We have a special set of pronouns that we use to be the subject of a sentence. The table below lists the most common subject pronouns.

Subject Pronouns in English

	Singular	Plural
1st person	I	we
2nd person	you	you
3rd person	she	they
	he
	it

We don’t say Me like candy or Him has a cat. We say I like candy and He has a cat. Me and him are the wrong type of pronouns. We use subject pronouns. Here are some more examples:

I like movies.

Do you like movies?

Invite Clara. She likes movies.

He likes movies, too!

We like watching movies on weekends.

Before a verb, to express who or what does the action in a sentence, use a subject pronoun.

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OBJECT PRONOUNS

Almost all verbs have a subject, and some also have an object. The object of a verb is the thing that receives an action. For example, you wouldn't just say, I want, right? You need to want something. We say I want coffee or I want a cheeseburger. Coffee and cheeseburger are objects. They receive the verb, want.

I want a hamburger.

I want a job.

I want a girlfriend.

Hamburger, job, and girlfriend are objects. Notice that objects generally come after the verb in the sentence. We use object pronouns to represent objects in sentences. This table lists the most common object pronouns:

Object Pronouns in English

	Singular	Plural
1st person	me	us
2nd person	you	you
3rd person	her	they
	him
	it

Here are some examples of sentences using object pronouns:

That hamburger looks delicious. I want it.

Who is that girl? I think I know her.

You can have these books if you want them.

Can I help you?

My teacher hates me!

In all the examples above, the pronouns are the objects of a verb. We use the same set of object pronouns as the objects of prepositions, as you can see in these examples:

My grandmother gave that to me.

I've been getting weird texts from her.

We've heard so much about you!

After a verb or a preposition, you generally want to use an object pronoun.

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POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

To possess something is to own or have that thing. If I have a car, we can say that car is my possession. We can say, That car is mine. Mine is a pronoun in this sentence. It represents the car, the thing that I possess. Mine is a possessive pronoun. Here is a chart with the most common possessive pronouns:

Possessive Pronouns in English

	Singular	Plural
1st person	mine	ours
2nd person	yours	yours
3rd person	hers	they
	his
	its

Here are some example sentences with possessive pronouns:

That car is hers.

This is my drink. That one is yours.

All the coats are in a big messy pile. I can't find mine!

As you can see, possessive pronouns can be used to talk about things that belong to specific people.

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POSSESSIVE DETERMINERS

Possessive determiners (also called possessive adjectives) are not actually pronouns, but it's a good idea to learn them at the same time, because they are very similar to possessive pronouns. The difference is that possessive determiners can not replace nouns; they come before nouns to tell us whose they are. If someone asks, Whose iPad is this? you could answer with a possessive pronoun: It's mine. But you could also use a possessive determiner:

That's my iPad.

With a possessive determiner, it is important to include a noun after. Just saying That is my. would by wrong. Here is a list of the most common possessive determiners.

Possessive Determiners in English

	Singular	Plural
1st person	my	our
2nd person	your	your
3rd person	her	their
	his
	its

And here are some examples of possessive determiners in sentences:

Sorry, I have to take this call. It's my son.

Cheryl is at her English class.

We lost our baseball game.

Please take off your shoes.

Can you believe they lost their homework again?

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REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS

So we have talked about subjects and objects, right? Subjects are the people or things that do the action in the verb, and objects are the people or things that receive the action. Sometimes, those are the same person, right? For example, if I cut my finger, I hurt someone. The someone I hurt is me (ouch!). But in English we don't say I hurt me. We have special pronouns for the object in this situation, and they are called reflexive pronouns.

Here is a table of the most common reflexive pronouns in English:

Reflexive Pronouns in English

	Singular	Plural
1st person	myself	ourselves
2nd person	yourself	yourselves
3rd person	herself	themselves
	himself
	itself

And here are some examples of reflexive pronouns used in sentences:

Clara taught herself English.

Don't play with that knife. You will hurt yourself.

The kids are entertaining themselves in the yeard.

Oh, nothing. I'm just talking to myself.

After a couple of days, the problem fixed itself.

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Complete English Pronoun Chart

Here is a complete table of all the pronouns discussed in this post. There are still some other types of pronouns, however. Demonstrative pronouns and relative pronouns, for example, are usually studied separately.

Pronouns in English

			Subject	Object	Possessive Pronoun	Possessive Determiner	Reflexive
Singular	1st Person		I	me	mine	my	myself
	2nd person		you	you	yours	your	yourself
	3rd person	Feminine	she	her	hers	her	herself
		Masculine	he	him	his	his	himself
		Neutral	they	them	theirs	their	themself
		Inanimate	it	it	its	its	itself
Plural	1st Person		we	us	ours	our	ourselves
	2nd Person		you	you	yours	your	yourselves
	3rd Person		they	them	theirs	their	themselves
	Impersonal		one	one	one's	one's	oneself

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Pronombres en Inglés

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Pronomes pessoais em inglês

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الضمائر في الانجليزية

Parts of Speech in English

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Parts of Speech in English

Every word in a language can be categorized by its part of speech. Parts of speech (also known as word classes) tell us what a word does, along with how it functions and makes meaning. We can also group parts of speech into lexical words, which carry a lot of meaning, and function words (or grammar words), which help us make sentences and show the relationship between things.

Overview of English Parts of Speech

How Many Parts of Speech are There?

There are a total of 9 different parts of speech in English: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, and articles (or determiners). Read on for a brief explanation of each!

If an article tells you that there are only 8, they are often missing articles or determiners, which are a really important one, especially for language learners.

Why Learn about Parts of Speech?

If you’re looking for the parts of speech in English grammar, you’ve come to the right place! If you’re trying to learn English online by yourself, understanding the parts of speech is a good place to start. They can help you to understand the structure of the language to guide your studying. If you are looking for an in-depth guide to English grammar, our complete English grammar guide might be more helpful.

Frequency of Different Parts of Speech

At Ginseng English, we believe in taking a research-informed, strategic approach to learning English. So understanding the general frequency of the different parts of speech is helpful. Take a look at the following table showing the proportion of the different parts of speech in conversational English and academic prose. (Note that the percentages are approximate and may not total 100% because the original categorization was slightly different from ours. This is only to give a general sense of the proportions.

Frequency of Parts of Speech

		Conversation	Academic
Lexical	Nouns	15%	30%
	Verbs	12.5%	10%
	Adjectives	2.5%	10%
	Adverbs	5%	3%
Function	Pronouns	16.5%	4%
	Prepositions	5.5%	15%
	Determiners	4.5%	10%
	Conjunctions	4.5%	5%

Source: Biber, et. al., (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English.

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Nouns

Lots of teachers say a noun is a person, place, or thing! You should also add ideas to that list. Proper nouns in English start with a capital letter, but other nouns do not.

Here are some examples of nouns:

This is my father.

We are from Ecuador.

I have two dogs.

On this holiday we celebrate our independence.

Nouns in English can be singular or plural. to form a regular plural, we simply add -s or -es to the end of a noun. Irregular plurals do not follow this rule.

Here is a complete article on Nouns in English.

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Pronouns

Pronouns are used to stand in place for a noun, because in English we don’t like to repeat nouns again and again. The noun that a pronoun refers back to is called its antecedent. Examples of common pronouns in English are he, she, it, him, her, mine, this, that, myself. Pronouns in English change form to show, for example, whether they are singular or plural, subjects or objects, male or female or neither.

Here are examples of some basic pronouns:

Can I have that?

We are with her.

I think I need something to eat.

Here is a complete article on pronouns in English.

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Verbs

Verbs are words we use to talk about actions, states, and occurrences (things that happen). Many people would say that nouns and verbs are the most important and useful parts of speech in any language.

The main verb in a sentence has a subject, generally a noun or pronoun referring to the person or thing that the sentence is about. For example, in the sentence Maria walks, the verb is walks and the subject is Maria. Verbs can change form to ‘agree with’ their subject.

Here are some examples of verbs:

They cook every night

We went to the store.

This will help the people.

Notice in that last example that a verb can be more than one word. This is called a compound verb. There are two types of verb: main verbs and helping verbs (also called auxiliary verbs).

Here is a complete guide to the English verb tenses.

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Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe, or modify, nouns. They generally (but not always) come before nouns. In the following phrases, the adjectives are in bold:

a big party some terrible news the best pizza an interesting idea a really strong leader

For more information, check out our list of the most common adjectives in English.

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Adverbs

Like adjectives, adverbs are describing words. But while adjectives describe only nouns, adverbs can describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or entire sentences.

Because adverbs are so versatile, it is hard to say much that applies to all adverbs generally. They can appear at different places in the sentence: at the beginning, before a verb, before an adjective, after a verb, or at the end of a sentence.

walk slowly speak clearly immediately fell run fast

Many adverbs end in -ly, and many adjectives can be transformed into adverbs by adding the suffix -ly: slow becomes slowly, eventual becomes eventually, stupid becomes stupidly, etc.

One of the most basic types of adverbs are adverbs of frequency. Click through to read more about those.

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Articles

The articles in English are a, an (indefinite articles) and the (definite article). Articles can be really tricky, but the basic idea is that we use indefinite articles when we are introducing a new noun to our listeners or not referring to a specific object. On the other hand, we use definite articles to refer to a specific object that our listeners already know about.

Note: You may find articles out there claiming that articles are a type of adjective. This is simply incorrect. At one time (about 300 years ago) some people thought this, but this is not a current view.

Note: Some grammars treat articles as a subcategory of determiners. This is a valid view. Determiners include possessive determiners such as my and your, as well as demonstrative determiners such as this, that, these, and those.

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Prepositions

Prepositions are, to put it simply, words that are placed before (pre-position) nouns or pronouns to connect them to other parts of speech in a sentence. There are different types of preposition that give different types of information: prepositions of time, prepositions of place, prepositions of direction.

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Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words that connect. They can connect, for example, a list of nouns in a series. But most of the time, when we are talking about conjunctions, we are talking about connecting one clause to another clause in the same sentence. There are two types of conjunctions: coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.

Coordinating Conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions connect two clauses of equal importance into what we call a compound sentence. There are not many coordinating conjunctions. You can remember them with the acronym FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

Subordinating Conjunctions

When we connect clauses using subordinating conjunctions, we are giving one clause more importance than the other. The less important clause is called a subordinate clause. Two or more clauses combined with subordinating conjunctions are called a complex sentence. Some common subordinating conjunctions are because, although, before, since, when, while, and if.

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Interjections

Interjections are funny words: ouch, wow, hmm, oops, well, geez.. They are sort of the black sheep of English grammar. They are not connected to the other words in a sentence (they are inter-jected, put in between, the other words). Generally they add emotion to a sentence. Here are some examples of interjections:

Wow, I'm so tired.

Ouch! I cut my finger.

Oh, you moved to Manhattan

Future Continuous Tense

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• Future Continuous

The future continuous (also called the future progressive) is an English verb form used to describe actions that will be in progress at a particular moment in the future.   This can be a time or date, or it can be another action.

This is not a common verb form. Less than .1% of English verbs are in the future continuous.

Keep reading to learn the rules and reasons for using and forming the future continuous, including loads of charts and examples!

It is important to realize that continuous and progressive are different names for the same thing. In some places, progressive is more common, but continuous is a more common term overall.

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USing the Future continuous

When we see a continuous verb, it tells us that something is in progress at a particular time. With the future continuous, that time is in the future. This can be a time or date (next weekend, tomorrow at 5, on November 3rd) or it can be another action in the future.

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Chart for Future Continuous Tense In English

Here are some example sentences:

Don’t call her at 8. She will be flying to Denver then.

I will probably be running when you come home.

Try to be quiet when you come home tonight. Everyone will be sleeping.

In these examples, the continuous action (will be flying, will be running) will start before the other specific action (come home) or time (at 8), and continued after that action or time.

We can also use the future continuous to show that a future action will continue over a period of time.

I’m going to be studying all next week.

We will be traveling for most of 2019.

Forming the Future continuous

There are two options for forming the future continuous: will or going to.

Formula With Will

To form the future continuous with will, use will be and the continuous form of the verb, with -ing.

subject + will be + VERBing

Conjugation with Will

Here is a complete conjugation table:

Future Continuous Tense Verb Conjugation with Will

	Singular		Plural
1st person	I	will be working.	we	will be working.
2nd person	you	will be working.	you	will be working.
3rd person	he	will be working.	they	will be working.
	she	will be working.
	it	will be working.

Formula With Going To

To form the future continuous with going to, you need to use the correct present form of the verb to be (am/is/are). Then use going to be. Then use the -ing form of the verb.

subject + am/is/are + going to be + VERBing

Conjugation with Going to

Here is the going to conjugation table:

Future Continuous Tense Verb Conjugation with Going To

	Singular		Plural
1st person	I	am going to be working.	we	are going to be working.
2nd person	you	are going to be working.	you	are going to be working.
3rd person	he	is going to be working.	they	are going to be working.
	she	is going to be working.
	it	is going to be working.

Other Forms

Questions

In the future continuous, you have more than one helping verb. To make a question, move the subject after the first helping verb (be or will).

Will you be eating out tonight?

When will you be arriving in Philadelphia?

Are you going to be sleeping when I get home?

What are you going to be reading next semester?

Negative Sentences

To form a negative, insert not after the first helping verb (be or will).

I will not be eating out tonight.

She will not be running.

We are not going to be reading Nabokov.

I am not going to be sleeping when you get home.

The Passive Voice

Making a passive sentence in the future progressive is extremely complex and extremely rare. In the conventional passive, putting be in the future progressive results in the unnatural combination of be and being: …will be being… or …going to be being…

For this reason, we recommend using the get passive in the future progressive. Put get in the future progressive (is going to be getting, are going to be getting, will be getting) and then the perfect form of the main verb.

We are going to be getting picked up by my mom.

If we miss another payment, we’ll be getting kicked out!

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