Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to express near-future plans using the “ir + a + infinitive” construction.

Lesson Explanation

Building directly on ir (to go) from Part 2, Lesson 4, Spanish has a genuinely simple and extremely common way to talk about the near future — structurally identical to English “going to”:

voy a + infinitive — I am going to...
vas a + infinitive — you are going to...
va a + infinitive — he/she/you (formal) is/are going to...
vamos a + infinitive — we are going to...
vais a + infinitive — you all are going to... (Spain)
van a + infinitive — they/you all are going to...

Examples:

Voy a estudiar. — I am going to study.
Vamos a comer. — We are going to eat.
¿Vas a trabajar mañana? — Are you going to work tomorrow?

This construction is genuinely more common in everyday speech than the true future tense (covered later, in Part 5, Lesson 5) for talking about near-term or planned events — much like English speakers say “I’m going to call her” far more often than “I shall call her.”

A useful reminder from Part 3, Lesson 1: object and reflexive pronouns can attach to the infinitive here too: Voy a levantarme (I am going to get up) — the same flexibility already seen with reflexive verbs.

Practice Questions