Severn Spanish

Future tense III

 

 

Introduction

You know the phrasal future, which is one way of talking about events that are going to happen (ir + a + infinitive). There is, however, a simple tense (and by that I mean a non-compound tense) that is considered to be the true, formal future tense. It is a little bit different from the other tenses you’ve learned in terms of how the conjugations are formed.

 

Formation — Regular Verbs

You are accustomed to conjugating verbs by dropping the infinitive and adding an ending. Well, with the future tense, at least with regular verbs, you leave the infinitive unchanged and add conjugations to the end of the whole verb. Take a look at bailar:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The great thing about the future is that the conjugations are the same for all infinitives. There is no difference between -AR, -ER, and -IR endings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Formation — Irregular Verbs

Many verbs that are irregular in other tenses are regular in the future (ser, ir, estar). There are also no stem-changers to worry about. However, there are quite a few verbs with little irregularities in the future, but they largely follow the same patterns. Tener will serve as our first example.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some others:

poner: pondré, pondrás, pondrá, pondremos, pondréis, pondrán

poder: podré, podrás, podrá, podremos, podréis, podrán

haber: habré, habrás, habrá, habremos, habréis, habrán

hacer: haré, harás, para, haremos, haréis, harán

querer: querré, querrás, querrá, querremos, querréis, querrán

 

Usage

The future tense, as you might have guessed, is used to talk about the future:

Viajará a España en dos meses. (He will travel to Spain in two months.)

Lo haré para ti. (I will do it for you.)

Andaremos por el parque después de cenar. (We will walk through the park after eating dinner.)

 

The future tense has another use, however, and that use has a special name: the suppositional future. This is how you say things like “You must be starving,” or “It must be getting late” — things you don’t know for sure but suppose to be true. Often, you’ll see this with time:

Serán las ocho. (It must be eight.)

 

Other examples:

Tendrás hambre. ¿Quieres algo de comer? (You must be hungry. Would you like something to eat?)

Ella no está en clase. Estará enferma. (She is not in class. She must be sick.)