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Future perfect tense

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  • 24-07-2009 7:35am
    #1
    loobylou
    Registered Users Posts: 1,418 ✭✭✭


    Can anyone please explain for me what the future perfect tense is, I'm trying to find the English translation for, Das Buch wird von dem Lehrer gelesen worden sein.


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    #2
    jumpguy
    Registered Users Posts: 7,962 ✭✭✭jumpguy


    loobylou wrote: »
    Can anyone please explain for me what the future perfect tense is, I'm trying to find the English translation for, Das Buch wird von dem Lehrer gelesen worden sein.
    The book would be read by the teacher. I'm 70% sure that's what it means. Das Buch is the book, wird is would, Lehrer is teacher, gelesen is the perfect tense of "to read" and sein is the verb "to be" which is required in the perfect tense.

    The perfect tense is an action done once in the past "I went to the shop yesterday". Then I assume the future perfect tense is an action done once in the future.


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    #3
    Amtmann
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,093 ✭✭✭Amtmann


    ^^ No, that's the subjunctive I think.

    The future perfect tense is used to refer to an event that will be completed at some stage in the future (as in "I will have it done by Tuesday"). It is also commonly used in German to express a supposition about the present:

    er wird es vergessen haben
    he'll have forgotton it*

    * Taken from Chambers German Verbs, Third Edition, (Edinburgh, 2009), p. 12.


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    #4
    Persius
    Registered Users Posts: 76 ✭✭Persius


    I'd translate the sentance as
    - The book will have been read by the teacher.

    Sounds a bit wierd in this example. Perhaps more realistic would be something like
    - The house will have been built by the end of the year
    which you could translate
    - Das Haus wird bis Ende des Jahres gebaut worden sein

    That's more or less the same as your example - a passive sentance, in what I think is the future perfect.

    But I'm not a native German speaker, nor a grammatical expert in either language, so double-check


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    #5
    loobylou
    Registered Users Posts: 1,418 ✭✭✭loobylou


    Full marks Perseus, I had my German lesson last night and that is exactly how my teacher translated it.
    As you said it would be unlikely to be found in the form I gave (I got it from a grammar exercise book), more likely something like,
    (by next term) the book will have been read by the teacher.
    Many thanks to everyone,
    L


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