Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to conjugate regular verbs in the true future tense and know when to prefer it over the near-future construction from Part 3, Lesson 5.

Lesson Explanation

Like the conditional, the future tense uses the full infinitive as its stem, with one shared set of endings across all three verb groups:

hablaré, hablarás, hablará, hablaremos, hablaréis, hablarán comeré, comerás, comerá, comeremos, comeréis, comerán viviré, vivirás, vivirá, viviremos, viviréis, vivirán

The same twelve or so irregular stems that affect the conditional (previous lesson) affect the future identically: tener → tendré, hacer → haré, poder → podré, decir → diré, salir → saldré.

As noted back in Part 3, Lesson 5, everyday spoken Spanish overwhelmingly prefers ir + a + infinitive for near-future plans. The true future tense is genuinely more common in writing, formal speech, and for predictions or promises further out in time:

Iré a la fiesta mañana. — I'll go to the party tomorrow. (near-future construction, more natural in speech)
El próximo siglo traerá grandes cambios. — The next century will bring great changes. (true future, distant/formal prediction)

A genuinely useful additional use of the future tense with no English equivalent: expressing present-moment probability or guessing. ¿Qué hora será? (I wonder what time it is? — literally “what time will it be?”) expresses uncertainty about right now, not a genuine future event.

Practice Questions