Learn French: L'année prochaine, ils auront extrait tout l'or. - Next year, they will have extracted all the gold.

L'année prochaine, ils auront extrait tout l'or.

Next year, they will have extracted all the gold.

Breakdown of L'année prochaine, ils auront extrait tout l'or.

ils

they (masculine/mixed)

Questions & Answers about L'année prochaine, ils auront extrait tout l'or.

How do we form the futur antérieur (future perfect) in this sentence?

Just like in English ('will have extracted'), you need an auxiliary verb in the future tense plus a past participle. Here, we use the future tense of avoir for the 'ils' (they) form, which is auront, followed by the past participle of the main verb, extrait.

What is the infinitive of extrait?

The infinitive is extraire (to extract). It is an irregular verb, but its past participle, extrait, looks and sounds a lot like the English word 'extract', making it easy to remember!

Why do we use tout instead of tous here?

Tout (all) must agree with the noun it modifies. Since or (gold) is a masculine singular noun, we use the masculine singular form tout. Notice that we also need the definite article l' before or, literally saying 'all the gold'.

Could I say l'an prochain instead of l'année prochaine?

Yes, both mean 'next year' and are grammatically correct. However, l'année prochaine is much more common in everyday spoken French. We often use année when emphasizing the duration or span of the year, which fits well with a long, continuous process like extracting gold.