Professor Dave again, let’s use the future perfect.
We just learned about the future tense, but there are other similar tenses that exist.
The need for a future perfect tense will make more sense if we look at the etymology of
these words.
Let’s recall that the word “perfect” means “completed”, so this tense is specifically
used to describe an action completed in the future.
This means that if we are looking at two different actions, both happening in the future, one
of them will have to take place before the other.
Simple future will describe the one farther away from us, or happening later.
The closer one, or the one happening sooner is the future perfect.
This is why Italian calls it futuro anteriore, because the prefix “ante” means ahead.
Let’s clarify with an example.
But we must realize that one must graduate before looking for a particular type of job.
In this way, the sentence describes two events, both in the future, but one must necessarily
precede the other, so we use future perfect first, and then simple future tense.
This can be confusing for English speakers, because we don’t always talk this way.
Normally we say something like: When I get home, I will watch TV.
Italians would say, when I will have arrived at home, I will watch TV.
This makes sense when you think about it, because you certainly must be home before
you can turn on the TV.
In addition, let’s understand that futuro anteriore is another compound tense, like
passato prossimo, in the sense that it combines an auxiliary verb with the past participle.
This means that all the previous rules of choosing essere or avere still apply.
We must therefore recall that the auxiliary avere will be used for all transitive verbs,
while all verbs of directional movement, verbs regarding “state of being”, reflexive
verbs, and the verb piacere, will require the auxiliary essere.
The present form of these auxiliaries will be modified into a future form.
Let’s go through all the forms for mangiare.
Let’s do one more verb, andare.
Let’s put these into context.
Hopefully we are now getting the hang of this tense.
There is one more important use of futuro anteriore, and perhaps counterintuitively,
this is to express a probability or a conjecture in the past.
And that’s plenty for now, so let’s check comprehension.