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Pedants' corner
Original poster

Please tell me what the rule is

34 replies

MisguidedAngel · 30/04/2014 17:04

I am one of a small English/French group of friends who meet once a week to help each other with language. This week we were transating a French text - the literal translation was "while I will be enjoying myself, they will be writing their boring essays". We said that the correct English would be "while I am enjoying myself, they will be ..." - in other words, we wouldn't use the future tense after "while". We all knew this is correct, but we couldn't quote the rule, and one of our French friends, a bit of a pedant herself, really wants to know WHY. Can you help?

OP posts:
Fenton · 30/04/2014 17:07

I wonder if changing the order is possible

While they are doing their boring essays, I will be enjoying myself.

Then everyone's in the same tense?

Fenton · 30/04/2014 17:08

Sorry I can't actually name the rule, just realised how unhelpful my post was.

WowOoo · 30/04/2014 17:42

I think you can use the future tense with 'while'.

Eg: While I am working he will be travelling to Spain.

Seems fine to me. May need to check my grammar book later as I may well have forgotten if there is a rule or not. But it just sounds right.

WowOoo · 30/04/2014 17:46

But it's to say that something else is happening at the same time as the other thing.
Does that make sense?

DadDadDad · 30/04/2014 18:35

Does every rule have a name? That's news to me.

You can find on a Google search, people saying "While I will say..." but this seems to be where while is being used in a non-temporal sense, ie similar in meaning to "although".

When we are talking about two events occurring simultaneously, "while A, B" it does feel wrong to put A in the future tense even if B is in the future.

All of these sound right:
For the next few minutes, I suggest, while I cook tea, you clear the table. [instruction]
So, for the next few minutes, while I am cooking tea, you are clearing the table. [description]
Tomorrow, I suggest, while I cook tea, you will clear the table. [sounds a bit formal, but could be said]
So, tomorrow, while I am cooking tea, you will be clearing the table.
Years from now, I can picture it, while I cook tea, you will still be clearing the table.

ThinkIveBeenHacked · 30/04/2014 18:37

Is it not whilst

"Whilst I will be enjoying myself, they will/shall be...."

PortofinoRevisited · 30/04/2014 18:39

I thought that too.

PortofinoRevisited · 30/04/2014 18:41

But in the example you gave you are speaking in the future. So future tense would be appropriate. If I said " Ha, now whilst I am busy sunbathing, those poor buggers ARE doing their French homework"

PortofinoRevisited · 30/04/2014 18:47

I kind of see where you are coming from though. The "will be" gives a sense of you thinking or imagining what they are doing, rather than the future tense..

PortofinoRevisited · 30/04/2014 18:52

I asked my bilingual daughter what she would say, and she used "font les devoirs" - if they are doing it know. "Will be" would only be used in the future sense in French - whereas I think it a turn of phrase in English.

Original poster
MisguidedAngel · 01/05/2014 09:07

Thanks for so many replies - I knew you pedants would be up for a discussion.

The examples that some of you give are still in two tenses, present and future. It seems to sound right to use the future as long as it's not next to the word "while".

Portofino - yes, that's a good point. It's a "sense" of the future rather than the future itself.

The actual French phrase was "Pendant qu'ils ecriront leurs dissertations ennuyeuses, je passerai mon temps a lire les bons livres..." (I posted from memory, but the principle is the same; Pendant ... future tense in both phrases, whereas in English it's While...present tense... future tense.)

Of course there are plenty of constructions in French that we English find confusing and French people have difficulty in explaining. Although a bit of a pedant myself, I'm happy if I can understand and make myself understood in French, even though I know I make a lot of grammatical errors.

OP posts:
prism · 01/05/2014 13:48

There is a school of thought that says that the future tense in English is in fact the same as the present, but not used very much. Instead we say "will" plus a verb, which isn't really a tense. Examples are "The ship sails in the morning", "The election happens next week", "The film starts at 9" etc. So on that basis, if you said "while I am enjoying myself, they will be ...", you would actually be using the future tense for yourself, though it would look exactly the same as if you used the present.

FatalCabbage · 01/05/2014 14:17

There is no future tense in English - we use various bits of the present tense with future markers such as "tomorrow". In sentences such as in the OP, the things that haven't happened yet show that it's a time in the future.

Lots of languages don't mark tense at all. French is unusually rigid (could be worse; could be Russian) so her grammar-brain can't resolve the sequence of tenses.

DadDadDad · 01/05/2014 15:45

Fatal - what's your definition of future tense? Because the use of the auxiliaries WILL and SHALL with the verb (even if it doesn't inflect) is pretty clearly a reference to future events and functions as the future tense as far as I am concerned!

DadDadDad · 01/05/2014 15:56

But I wouldn't argue strongly one way or the other on future tense. Having rummaged round the internet, the Wikipedia article seems to summarise the views accurately:

English grammar provides a number of ways to indicate the future nature of an occurrence. Some argue that English does not have a future tense that is, a grammatical form that always indicates futurity nor does it have a mandatory form for the expression of futurity. However, there are several generally accepted ways to indicate futurity in English, and some of them particularly those that use will or shall are frequently described as future tense.

I just think you're a bit unjustified to state there is no future tense without explaining what you mean by a tense.

DrankSangriaInThePark · 01/05/2014 16:01

There is no future tense in English. Just 8 or 9 combinations of other "bits" of language.

There are only actually 2 tenses in English, technically speaking, Present Simple, and Past Simple. (definition of "tense" being a verb which has a declension according to the subject which precedes it)

The reason you can't say "While I will be doing X, you will be doing Y" is because "while" like "when" or "as soon as" (for example) express an indefinite future time, almost a hypothetical future time. (I always ask my students, when they look doolally at me as I say all this "when is when? Wink)

The funny thing is, when you ask people what the future is in English, "will" is always the one they come up with first, despite it being one of the lesser used ways of expressing the future.

DrankSangriaInThePark · 01/05/2014 16:04

With regard to the translation of the French sentence, you have the additional problem that in English we tend to use continuous forms when we can, they sound very natural - hence "will be doing" whereas most languages don't have, or at least rarely use that kind of form, so certainly the languages I know wouldn't render that "will be doing" form with an identical form but with a "normal" simple future term.

Loopyster · 01/05/2014 16:25

This is because in English, unlike in French, the future tense can't be used in time clauses.

so, 'plus yard quand j'irai aux magasins' is fine but when I will go to he shops' 'has to change to 'later when go to the shops'

does that make sense?

Loopyster · 01/05/2014 16:26

Stupid phone. Yard = tard, etc.

Loopyster · 01/05/2014 16:29

Ugh.

'later when I go to the shops' is good

'later when I will go to the shops' = bad

FatalCabbage · 01/05/2014 16:33

Tense is a technical term which requires morphology of the actual verb (ie not using an auxiliary).

Future idea is quite a different thing.

I don't list my qualifications because that would be cuntish. But they do exist.

Original poster
MisguidedAngel · 01/05/2014 17:05

Sooo interesting! Thanks, loopy, for the link, and the introduction to the website. I think I've got something to satisfy my friend's need to know. I'll have to practise saying it in French though.

OP posts:
DadDadDad · 01/05/2014 21:32

Fatal - not sure how qualifications come into it - where is the evidence that professional linguists define tense in this way and what is their rationale for doing so? Why would they make a distinction between a language where "mange" becomes "mangera" (ie the change happens within the word) and a language where "eats" becomes "will eat", ie the change happens by adding an auxiliary? I'm not asking to disagree, I'm genuinely curious to understand how concept of tense has been developed.

Drank - this is a corner for pedantry, not dogmatism. You say there are technically speaking only two tenses in English based on the verb inflecting. But I see:
I run - PRESENT SIMPLE
I am running - PRESENT CONTINUOUS
I ran - PAST SIMPLE
I have run - PAST PERFECT
The word "run" has four forms, so isn't that four tenses?

nickelbabe · 01/05/2014 21:35

it's not a "future" tense, I think.it's related to conditional.

but it is corrwct to say "while I am doing this, they will ve doing that"