Futur antérieur (Future perfect) – Exercises and conjugation

 

Conjugation

Avoir

We need to learn the conjugation of avoir in the future tense (futur simple).

We will then add the past participle of a verb. This is easier to explain with an image :-).

Let’s begin with avoir:

Text in red: Avoir conjugated in the future tense.

Text in blue: The past participle of different verbs.

 

So, what are the key takeaways?

1. We need to learn the conjugation of avoir in the future tense. This should be quite easy, just study the image :-).
2. We need to learn the different past participles. This can be a bit more difficult. Let’s learn them together:

 

The regular verbs follows the same pattern:

• Regarder: Regardé
• Finir: Fini
• Entendre: Entendu

 

You can perform the same process with any regular verb ending in ER (for instance, regarder), IR (for instance, finir) and RE (for instance, entendre).

But, there are some irregular verbs. They don’t follow the same pattern.

In addition, these verbs can have tricky past participles. In the image above, there are two irregular verbs:

Faire: Fait

• Nous aurons fait: We will have made

Lire: Lu

• Vous aurez lu: You will have read

 

There are other important irregular verbs. Let’s look at some of them:

• Dire (to say): Dit

Example: J’aurai dit

• Savoir (to know): Su

Example: J’aurai su

• Voir (To see): Vu

Example: J’aurai vu

• Venir (to come): Venu

Example: Je serai venu

 

You have probably seen some past participles of irregular verbs before. Now you know that they are not just important for le passé composé 🙂

 

Être

 

 

So, what are the key takeaways?

1. We need to learn être conjugated in the future tense (futur simple).
2. We’ll then add the past participle (same process as for avoir).
3. Only a minority of the verbs takes être as their auxiliary.

 

These verbs will agree in gender and number. There are 17 verbs that will be conjugated with être instead of avoir.

 

The agreement of gender and number in practice:

 

A man will have arrived:

• Je serai arrivé

A woman will have arrived:

• Je serai arrivée

(We add an e to express the feminine form)

A group, with at least one man, will have arrived:

• Ils seront arrivés

(We add an s to express the plural form)

A group of women will have arrived:

• Elles seront arrivées

(We add an e to express the feminine form and an s to express the plural form)

 

Do you understand the difference now? If not, please do the exercises (with comments) where I explain in detail.

You can also leave a comment if you want me to explain gender and number in more detail.

Exercises

 

With comments

Comment: 

Venir will take être as auxiliary.

Thus, we need to make sure that the verb agree in gender and number.

The person in the sentence is elle/she. Therefore, we add an e to venu. 

And what about number? We are only referring to one person, elle/she.

There is no need to add a letter that could express the plural form.

Comment:

We have already concluded that venir takes être as auxiliary.

We are still referring to elles, which means that we need to add an e.

However, we are no longer referring to a single person.

Elles represents a group of women. Thus, we need to add an s as well.

Comment:

So, what is the difference between j’aurai and j’aurais?

• We use J’aurais  (I would have) for the conditional mood.
• We use J’aurai for the future tense (futur simple.) If we add the past participle of a verb, we’ll create the future perfect tense.

It’s important to learn the difference, even if the pronunciation is similar.

Comment:

Ok, are we going to conjugate tomber with être or avoir?

We will conjugate tomber with être.

It’s quite easy to learn the meaning of tomber.

However, sometimes we forget that it belongs to être.

Remember, there are only 17 verbs in this group.

We can might as well learn them by heart on our journey to become fluent in French.

Comment:

This exercise follows the same pattern as the previous one.

We need to know if devenir will be conjugated with avoir or être.

The auxiliary for devenir is être.

In addition, we will refer to a woman, which means that we need to add an e.

Thus, the response is elle sera devenue.

Comment:

It’s important to spell corrrectly 🙂

aura and auras belong to the futur (antérieur) tense.

However, we’ll use:

• Auras for tu
• Aura for il/elle/on

Comment:

I wanted to add this one to make you think about irregular verbs.

Boire has a past participle that is highly irregular – bu.

Boire and its past participle is in good company. For instance:

• Pouvoir: Pu
• Savoir: Su
• Lire: Lu

I know, from personal experience, that it’s important to implement irregular endings in different exercises. Why?

Because at some point, you’ll no longer have to reflect before using irregular past participles.

Comment:

Is there a way to figure out if the “je” is a female or a male?

Given the context, I don’t think so.

Without a proper context, I would go with serai sorti. Thus, I would assume that we don’t need to change the past participle.

Without comments

Negation

We will place the negation (for instance, ne….pas) around the auxiliary.

There are only 2 auxiliaries for le futur antérieur: Être and Avoir.

I think you are aware of this by now 🙂

Let’s look at some examples:

• Il ne sera pas devenu: He will not have become.
• Nous ne serons pas tombés: We will not have fallen.

Not too difficult, right?

We just need to remember that ne can becomes n’ if the following verb begins with a vowel.

This is (very) relevant when using avoir, as its different conjugations (in le futur antérieur) will always begin with an a.

For instance:

• Je n’aurai pas terminé ma tâche: I will not have completed my task.
• Nous n’aurons pas mangé avant que tu viennes: We will not have eaten before you come.
• Ils n’auront pas le temps pour moi: They will not have time for me.

 

Last but not least, it’s common to place the negation incorrectly for different tenses.

It’s very common for le passé compose. For instance.

• Je n’ai mangé pas la pomme: Incorrect
• Je n’ai pas mangé la pomme: Correct

Why add an example of le passé composé in an article about le futur antérieur?

Look at this example:

• Je n’aurai terminé pas ma tâche – Incorrect
• Je n’aurai pas terminé ma tâche – Correct

The mistakes follow the same pattern, right? 🙂

Final note

I have 2 final recommendations.

You should learn the conjugation of avoir and être in the futur tense (futur simple).

This will make it much easier when using futur antérieur.

I know from my personal experience that many students tend to use the conjugations for the conditional mood instead.

I have already mentioned that they are similar.

You can study them side by side to learn the difference.

My second recommendation is to learn the verbs that take être as their auxiliary.

Verbs taking être will agree in gender and number. I have tried to highlight this in the exercises of this article.

Last but not least, there are different areas of application for le futur antérieur.

I will extend this article with more information about this. For now, you can try to remember that le futur antérieur will precede another action in the future.

The exercises in the article highlights this. For instance:

• Elle sera partie quand vous entrerez: She will have left when you walk in.

Please leave a comment if you feel that something is not clear.