How does present tense work?

[SimonDoom]

I find future perfect and future perfect progressive quite confusing. I would be thankful if you could provide an example where it makes sense to use such tenses.

Scratch my previous answer. I'm working on a new one.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I find future perfect and future perfect progressive quite confusing. I would be thankful if you could provide an example where it makes sense to use such tenses.

Future perfect is will have and future perfect progressive is will have been?

By this time tomorrow I will have received my diploma. And I will have been on this campus for four years.

 

[SimonDoom]

I find future perfect and future perfect progressive quite confusing. I would be thankful if you could provide an example where it makes sense to use such tenses.

Scratch my previous answer.

Future: Five months from now, I will drink a Mai Tai on the beach.

Future progressive: Five months from now, I will be drinking a Mai Tai on the beach.

Future perfect: Five months from now, I will have drunk a Mai Tai on the beach.

Future perfect progressive: Five months from now, I will have been drinking a Mai Tai on the beach.


As a writer, I would probably try to go out of my way NOT to use future perfect progressive.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Scratch my previous answer.

Future: Five months from now, I will drink a Mai Tai on the beach.

Future progressive: Five months from now, I will be drinking a Mai Tai on the beach.

Future perfect: Five months from now, I will have drunk a Mai Tai on the beach.

Future perfect progressive: Five months from now, I will have been drinking a Mai Tai on the beach.


As a writer, I would probably try to go out of my way NOT to use future perfect progressive.

Yes yes, but I needed the difference in meaning explained as well
The way I read these four sentences is that the first two express the surety of something happening. The third doesn't express surety but something that is only likely to happen, or will potentially happen? In the fourth I have no fucking clue what the difference in meaning is...

 

[SimonDoom]

Yes yes, but I needed the difference in meaning explained as well
The way I read these four sentences is that the first two express the surety of something happening. The third doesn't express absolute surety but something that is only likely to happen? The fourth I have no fucking clue what is the difference in meaning...

Not quite. The third example, future perfect, is intended to indicate a point in the future, before which some other thing has happened and concluded.

The fourth example, future perfect progressive, is intended to indicate a point in the future, before which some other thing continues to happen but concludes before the point in the future.

I see future perfect progressive as a tense one would very rarely, if ever, want to use.

The way to express your understanding of the third -- something that is only likely to happen -- is:

Five months from now, I probably will have drunk a Mai Tai on the beach.

 

[BobbyLaker]

Think I'll stick with third-person omniscient past tense

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Not quite. The third example, future perfect, is intended to indicate a point in the future, before which some other thing has happened and concluded.

The fourth example, future perfect progressive, is intended to indicate a point in the future, before which some other thing continues to happen but concludes before the point in the future.

I see future perfect progressive as a tense one would very rarely, if ever, want to use.

The way to express your understanding of the third -- something that is only likely to happen -- is:

Five months from now, I probably will have drunk a Mai Tai on the beach.

Aha. So in the fourth sentence, the continuous drinking of the mai tai concludes before the five months are up?

 

[SimonDoom]

Think I'll stick with third-person omniscient past tense

There's a reason people choose to do that. It's a lot easier to manage for most of us.

 

[SimonDoom]

Aha. So in the fourth sentence, the continuous drinking of the mai tai concludes before the five months are up?

You know, thinking about it, I don't think so. The progressive indicates that the drinking continued up to the point in time in the future.

Analogize it to the present perfect progressive:

I have been drinking a Mai Tai on the beach.

This suggests I started drinking the Mai Tai before the point in time of the narration, and that I'm still drinking the Mai Tai.

 

[SimonDoom]

Aha. So in the fourth sentence, the continuous drinking of the mai tai concludes before the five months are up?

If your head is swimming, mine is too.

 

[BobbyLaker]

If your head is swimming, mine is too.

Mine's swum off... interesting thread though.

 

[Bamagan]

There's a reason people choose to do that. It's a lot easier to manage for most of us.

The most fun is had when a time traveler is trying to describe events that happened in their past but which are partially concurrent with the present they find themselves in.
The Mai Tai I will have been anticipating since five months in the past before a few minutes ago somehow has and will probably be going to cause my past present self's future to have been my present future self's past and future.
Is that sentence correct? Beats me!
(That's not how time travel works, so say the Bruces Banner and Wayne.)

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

The first version is the past tense one?

I wasn't worried about my past tense narration being confusing so much as hoping that shifting to present tense would help differentiate two parallel threads of narration in a story that starts in medias res. We have the narrator telling someone about what happened to him a while ago, and also experiencing other events in the moment.

The past tense one!

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You know, thinking about it, I don't think so. The progressive indicates that the drinking continued up to the point in time in the future.

Analogize it to the present perfect progressive:

I have been drinking a Mai Tai on the beach.

This suggests I started drinking the Mai Tai before the point in time of the narration, and that I'm still drinking the Mai Tai.

Yeah, present perfect and present perfect progressive are quite clear to me.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have a story I'm trying to write in Present Tense. That's hard enough, I won't be trying future tense as a manner for a whole story.

Future perfect is will have and future perfect progressive is will have been?

By this time tomorrow I will have received my diploma. And I will have been on this campus for four years.