Breakdown of Plusieurs familles migreront quand elles auront vendu leur ferme.
elle
she
avoir
to have
quand
when
la famille
the family
Questions & Answers about Plusieurs familles migreront quand elles auront vendu leur ferme.
Why does the French use auront vendu (will have sold) when the English translation just says "have sold"?
In English, we often use a present or present perfect tense after "when" even if we mean the future. French is strictly logical: if the event hasn't happened yet, it needs a future tense after quand. Because selling the farm must happen before they migrate, French uses the futur antérieur (future perfect) to show this sequence.
How exactly is the futur antérieur formed in this sentence?
It is built just like the passé composé, but the helper verb is in the future tense! Here, we take the future tense of avoir for the "they" form (elles auront) and add the past participle of vendre (vendu).
Why is it leur ferme (singular) and not leurs fermes (plural) if there are several families?
I've seen émigrer and immigrer. What is the difference between those and migrer?