Now we’ll turn our attention to the futuro composto do indicativo! (Let’s call it futuro composto for short)
As you’re aware, an action in the futuro simples (simple future tense) takes place after the time the utterance is spoken and isn’t related to any other actions.
O Pedro falará no congressoPedro will speak at the conference
In the futuro composto, however, the future action represented by the verb happened before another event. In other words, it’s an action that will have been completed by a certain point in the future. This corresponds to the ‘future perfect’ tense in English.
How It Is Formed
The futuro composto is formed like this:
auxiliary verb ter in the simple future tense + the past participle of the main verb
Here are some examples:
Nessa altura, já terei acabado o trabalhoBy that time, I will have finished the job
Não sei se já terei jantado quando chegaresI don't know if I will have had dinner by the time you arrive
As you can see, including the adverb já is very common when using the futuro composto, just like with the mais-que-perfeito composto. It helps reinforce the completion of the action, but it’s not mandatory. For example:
Se começarmos agora, logo à noite teremos acabado o projetoIf we start now, we'll have finished the project by tonight
Other Use Cases
Don’t let the name futuro composto fool you — this tense can also be used with hypotheticals about the past. 😦 It comes up in contexts such as: According to local officials…, As far as we can tell…, or We think that…, among others. Futuro composto allows us to present an assumption as a logical conclusion rather than a confirmed fact, sort of like an educated guess. For example:
O suspeito terá entrado pela janelaThe suspect entered through the window (presumably)
O homem não terá sido atacado por uma ovelhaThe man was not attacked by a sheep (presumably)
Keep in mind that we can’t expect literal English translations here — we have to rely on adverbs such as presumably, allegedly, or probably to reflect the varying levels of (un)certainty.
Continuing with this theme of uncertainty, the futuro composto is also useful for asking questions when neither the speaker nor listener are sure of the answer:
- O Pedro terá feito o almoço?Has Pedro made lunch? (speculative)
- Essentially, this is the same as asking Do you think he made lunch? It invites the listener to speculate, rather than expecting a definitive answer.
- In contrast, using the pretérito perfeito (simple past) would make it a direct question, where we would expect a yes/no answer: O Pedro fez o almoço?Did Pedro make lunch?
- Achas que eles já terão chegado a casa?Do you think they've arrived home yet?
- This is an alternative way of asking Achas que eles já chegaram a casa?Do you think they've arrived home yet? . These two are much more similar because Achas que (Do you think) already introduces uncertainty, regardless of the tense used. The futuro version is just more formal and adds extra emphasis to the speculative aspect.
- Here, já helps makes the distinction that it is something happening closer to the present (today). Without it, we could be referring to the day, week, or month before.
Summary
Just to review, the futuro composto can be used to:
- talk about actions that will have been completed by a certain point in the future
- ask questions about actions, to which we don’t expect to get a sure answer
- talk about past actions with a variable degree of certainty