Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to conjugate the future and conditional tenses, including their shared irregular stems and the distinctive -are-to-er- spelling shift.

Lesson Explanation

The futuro semplice uses the infinitive as its stem, with -are verbs shifting their a to e first — a genuinely distinctive spelling detail with no Spanish equivalent: parlare → parler-. One shared set of endings: -ò, -ai, -à, -emo, -ete, -anno. From parlare: parlerò, parlerai, parlerà, parleremo, parlerete, parleranno.

A small but important group has an irregular future stem: essere → sarò, avere → avrò, andare → andrò, venire → verrò, potere → potrò.

The condizionale shares the same stem as the future (including the -are shift and irregular stems), but with different endings: -ei, -esti, -ebbe, -emmo, -este, -ebbero. From parlare: parlerei, parleresti, parlerebbe, parleremmo, parlereste, parlerebbero. From essere: sarei, saresti, sarebbe, saremmo, sareste, sarebbero.

As with Spanish’s ir + a (covered in an earlier-built Gabal course) and Italian’s own andare + a (Part 1, Lesson 4), everyday speech prefers the near-future construction over the futuro semplice for near-term plans; the true future is more common in writing and distant predictions. The condizionale is also genuinely common for polite requests: Potrebbe aiutarmi? (Could you help me? — formal.)

Practice Questions