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Situation: At present, I am currently playing COC (Clash of Clan), then I go to sleep, then I wake up. I want to ask what is the difference between these two:

After I wake up, the tower that I am upgrading will already have finished.

To

After I wake up, the tower that I am upgrading will already have been finished.

Note: If you spot any grammar mistake(s) in this particular sentences that I have written, please correct me, I really wanted to be fluent in English. Also, after I woke up or after I wake up?

John Arvin
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  • The first question to answer is: are you talking about something that happened in the past, or something that will happen in the future? Because "After I woke up" is in the past, but "will already have" is about in the future, so it's unclear what time you're talking about. – stangdon Jan 30 '18 at 13:00
  • Let's say I am currently playing COC, then I go to sleep, next, I woke up. Am I missing a tense in woke up? – John Arvin Jan 30 '18 at 14:14

1 Answers1

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Firstly, the grammar of both sentences is confusing, because first you use woke (a past tense), and then you use will (a future tense). If you are making a statement about a specific future time, use the simple present: By the time I wake up...

As for the difference between

will have finished

and

will have been finished

will have finished is in the active voice: it means that the tower is the one performing the action of "finishing". If you say "the tower will have finished", it makes me ask "Finished what?"

will have been finished is in the passive voice: it means that someone else is performing the action of "finishing" on the tower. We can tell that it's in the passive because of been, which is the past participle of to be, and we use (to have) been (past-participle) to form the passive voice in a perfect tense. This is probably the one you want to use, because it makes more sense to think of someone or something else completing the building of the tower.

If the difference is unclear, consider this example:

Active: By the time I wake up, my friend John will have eaten (John has eaten something)
Passive: By the time I wake up, my friend John will have been eaten (Something ate John!)

Reference: Passive voice

stangdon
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  • Got it! As for by the time, wake up, and the usage of future. This 'been' thing included as passive is what I hadn't understand before I asked this question.(is this sentence correct?) Also, you didn't include 'already' why is that? I would appreciate deeply if you answer both 2 of my questions here. – John Arvin Jan 30 '18 at 18:19
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    Hi, @JohnArvin - "already" doesn't really change the meaning of the sentence. That's why I didn't include it. As for your other sentence, I would phrase it as "This 'been' thing meaning passive is what I hadn't understood before I asked this question." – stangdon Jan 31 '18 at 19:29
  • OP has edited question according to your point 1, and this answer has become out-of-sync. I don't know if OP edit should be reverted, or this answer updated instead. – Marc.2377 Oct 26 '19 at 18:40