How to Talk about the Future
There are many ways you can talk about the future in Spanish. The easiest is to use an adverbial phrase indicating a future time (such as ma±ana, mßs tarde, luego, a la(s) + time, and so on) with the present tense of the verb: ma±ana voy al aeropuerto (‘tomorrow I’m going to the airport’); luego hablamos por telΘfono (‘we’ll talk on the telephone later’); a las cinco nos encontramos en la oficina de correos (‘at five o’clock we’ll meet at the post office’).
Another way to talk about the future is with the future tense.
The future tense in Spanish is formed by adding the endings -Θ,
-ßs, -ß, -emos, -Θis, -ßn
to the entire infinitive. Study these examples.
| HABLAR (to speak) | |
| hablarΘ | hablaremos |
| hablarßs | hablarΘis |
| hablarß | hablarßn |
| COMER (to eat) | |
| comerΘ | comeremos |
| comerßs | comerΘis |
| comerß | comerßn |
| VIVIR (to live) | |
| vivirΘ | viviremos |
| vivirßs | vivirΘis |
| vivirß | vivirßn |
Some verbs are irregular in the future tense. Click here to see these verbs.
Another very common way to talk about the future is using the verb ir in a conjugated form in the present tense, followed by the preposition a and an infinitive: voy a comer (‘I am going to eat’; ‘I will eat’); vas a comer, va a comer, vamos a comer, vais a comer, van a comer, etc. This structure is especially common in spoken Spanish.