Breakdown of Когда ты будешь заканчивать работу?
ты
you (singular)
работа
work, job
быть
to be
когда
when
заканчивать
to finish
Questions & Answers about Когда ты будешь заканчивать работу?
Why do we use two words (будешь заканчивать) for the future tense here?
This is the compound future tense! We use it for ongoing or repeated actions in the future. To make it, you take the future form of быть (to be) — which is будешь to match ты (you) — and add the imperfective infinitive of your action verb, заканчивать. It translates nicely to 'will be finishing'.
I know another word for 'to finish' — закончить. Why are we using заканчивать here?
заканчивать is the imperfective version of the verb, focusing on the process of doing something rather than the final result. The helper verb быть (like будешь) is ONLY ever used with imperfective verbs. If you wanted to use the perfective закончить to mean 'will finish' as a completed result, you would just conjugate it directly without будешь.
Why is the word for work spelled работу instead of the dictionary form работа?
Because 'work' is the direct object in this sentence — it is the thing that is being finished. That means it needs to be in the accusative case. For feminine nouns that end in -а like работа, the ending changes to -у in the accusative case, becoming работу.
What if I want to ask this question formally to a boss or stranger?
You would need to change the pronoun to the formal 'you' (вы) and also change the helper verb to match it. The sentence would become: Когда вы будете заканчивать работу? The main action verb (заканчивать) stays exactly the same as an infinitive.
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