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German tenses in use: Futur II Posted by on Dec 27, 2011 in Grammar, Language

The Futur II is used on different occasions.

 

a) You use Futur II to refer to actions that will take place in the future and that will have been completed in the future. You form sentences with the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb werden (will), the past form of the verb, and the unconjugated form the auxiliary haben (to have) or sein (to be).

 

Singular Plural
1st person ich werde(I will) wir werden(we will)
2nd person du wirst / Sie werden(you will) ihr werdet / Sie werden(you will)
3rd person er/sie/es wird(he/she/it will) Sie werden(they will)

 

1) Morgen werde ich schon mit ihm gesprochen haben.

(I will have talked with him by tomorrow.)

 

2. Bald wird sie es geschafft haben.

(Soon, she will have made it.)

 

3) Heute in einem Jahr werden wir schon unseren Urlaub in Australien verbracht haben.

(A year from today we will already have had our vacation in Australia.)

 

4) In zwei Wochen werden wir die Prüfungen geschrieben haben.

(In two weeks we will have written the tests.)

 

b) You can use the Futur II in order to express the assumption that an action of the past has been completed. In such statements, the past has to be stressed by using adverbs that refer to the past, like: gestern (yesterday), vor zwei Wochen (two weeks ago), vergangenes Jahr (last year), etc.

 

5) Sie wird gestern in München angekommen sein.

[Wahrscheinlich ist sie gestern in München angekommen.]

(She will have arrived in Munich yesterday.)

[Probably she arrived in Munich yesterday.]

 

6) Er wird ihr das Geschenk vor einer Woche gegeben haben.

[Wahrscheinlich hat er ihr das Geschenk vor einer Woche gegeben.]

(He will have given her the present a week ago.)

[Probably he has given her the present a week ago.]

 

c) The Futur II can also be replaced by the Perfekt, when the future is displayed with adverbs of time, for example, morgen (tomorrow), bald (soon), nachher (later), etc.

7) Morgen um diese Zeit werden wir in Köln angekommen sein.

(At this time tomorrow we will have arrived in Cologne.)

 

8) Bald werden wir es geschafft haben.

(Soon we will have made it.)

 

9) In einer Stunde werden wir unser Ziel erreicht haben.

(In one hour we will have reached our aim.)

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About the Author: Sandra Rösner

Hello everybody! I studied English and American Studies, Communication Science, and Political Science at the University of Greifswald. Since I have been learning English as a second language myself for almost 20 years now I know how difficult it is to learn a language other than your native one. Thus, I am always willing to keep my explanations about German grammar comprehensible and short. Further, I am inclined to encourage you to speak German in every situation. Regards, Sandra


Comments:

  1. danielmclion:

    Meine Meinung nach ist die übersätsung Nr 3 falsch: nicht: …. have been spent… Sonst: …. will have been in Australia. Oder: ….. will have spent our vacation in …
    MfG

    • Sandra Rösner:

      @danielmclion I wrote that. I only inserted the adverb “already” between the auxiliaries “will” and “have” to illustrate what the German word “schon” means.

  2. Sanjeev:

    Nice tutorial for me. Dank

  3. mex:

    you’ve mentioned that you’re using ‘the past form of the verb’ to form the sentence, but used the perfect form in all of them, as in 6 c)

    is perfect the more common use with future II?

    danke sehr

  4. Emanuel:

    The mistake in 3 is still there… the “been” has to be taken out.

    @mex: you are right. It is the perfect / past participle form. There is no such thing as future built with the past form so the participle is the only way to do it.