Forming the Future Tense in Spanish: Rules, Sentences and Practice

¡Hola! Welcome to a new Spanish grammar lesson. In this lesson, we will learn how to conjugate verbs in the future tense in Spanish and how to form sentences to talk about the future events. Just like in other lessons, we will learn about this topic with simple explanations, several examples and grammar exercises that will help you evaluate your understanding of the topic. Let’s start…

The future tense in Spanish – El futuro simple

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines the simple future tense in Spanish, “El futuro simple”, as:

An absolute time that expresses that something will exist or take place at a time after the moment of speech. The form “cantará”(will sing) is simple future in Spanish.

It is very easy to form the future tense in Spanish, and it is also a very useful tense in the language to talk about things that will happen in our lives or around us. The structure of the future simple is the equivalent to using the auxiliary “WILL” for the future from the English language, with some fundamental differences that we will cover right away. To begin, pay attention to the underlined words in the sentences about a trip to space shown in this image :

How to make sentences using the simple future tense in Spanish

The rules to form the future tense in Spanish

Conjugating verbs in the future tense in Spanish

In order to be able to form the future tense in Spanish, it is necessary to conjugate verbs following some specific rules, just as we do when forming the past tense, the simple present and other verb tenses in the language. In Spanish, we do not need an auxiliary verb like “WILL” to form the future of verbs. For this reason, we will simply modify the verb’s ending depending on the subject of the sentence, for example:

  • Presente: Yo soy amigo de Francisco. (I am Francisco’s friend)
  • Pasado: Alex era muy buen estudiante en la escuela. (Alex was a very good student in school.)
  • Futuro: Mark será el nuevo gerente de la empresa. (Mark will be the new manager of the company.)

Another essential difference when compared to other verb tenses in Spanish is that the ending of the verbs in the future will be identical regardless of whether the verb in infinitive ends in -AR, -ER or -IR. In fact, we will not replace the ending of the verb as it happens in other tenses, but we will add a letter or syllable to the end of the verb to form its future. The following table shows the conjugation of three verbs with different endings in the future tense in Spanish:

Subject/VerbCANTARCOMERVIVIR
Yocantarécomeréviviré
Tú/Voscantaráscomerásvivirás
El/Ella/Ustedcantarácomerávivirá
Nosotroscantaremoscomeremosviviremos
Vosotroscantaréiscomeréisviviréis
Ellos/Ustedescantaráncomeránvivirán

Notice that it is necessary to use “tilde” over some of the last vowels in some of the future forms of verbs in Spanish, for example: “vivirá” (will live) o “comerán” (will eat). Here are some examples of sentences with the future tense in Spanish following the rules we presented above.

HABLAR – Yo hablaré con ella mañana.
SPEAK – I’ll talk to her tomorrow.
PARTICIPAR – ¿Tú participarás en la competencia?
PARTICIPATE – Will you participate in the competition?
BAILAR – Ana bailará en el musical del colegio.
DANCING – Ana will dance in the school musical.
RECOPILAR – Nosotros recopilaremos toda la información necesaria.
COLLECT – We will collect all the necessary information.
PENSAR – Ellos pensarán cómo solucionar esto rápidamente.
THINK – They will think how to solve this quickly.
BEBER – Beberé café y luego me iré de compras.
DRINK – I’ll drink coffee and then I’ll go shopping.
ENTENDER – Vos entenderás todo cuando estés grande.
UNDERSTAND – You will understand everything when you are big.
APRENDER – Pablo aprenderá francés en los próximos 6 meses.
LEARN – Pablo will learn French in the next 6 months
APARECER – ¿Vosotros apareceréis en el programa?
APPEAR – Will you appear in the program?
ABRIR – Mañana abriremos la tienda tempranito.
OPEN – Tomorrow we will open the store very early.
CONDUCIR – Pronto conducirás mejor…
DRIVE – Soon, you will drive better…
REÍR – Ustedes se reirán toda la noche cuando les cuente el chisme.
REIR – You will laugh all night when I tell you the story.

Irregular verbs in the future tense in Spanish

There are some verbs that apart from suffering a change in their ending in the future simple in Spanish, they need another change its stem (the initial part of the verb). These verbs with an irregular future tense in Spanish are:

Caber, decir, haber, hacer, poder, poner, querer, saber, salir, tener, valer y venir.

Here is a chart showing how to conjugate these irregular verbs in the future in Spanish. Play the recording to listen to their pronunciation.
VerboYoTú/UstedÉl/EllaNosotrosVosotrosEllos
HABERhabréhabráshabráhabremoshabréishabrán
HACERharéharásharáharemosharéisharán
PODERpodrépodráspodrápodremospodréispodrán
SABERsabrésabrássabrásabremossabréissabrán
TENERtendrétendrástendrátendremostendréistendrán
CABERcabrécabráscabrácabremoscabréiscabrán
DECIRdirédirásdirádiremosdiréisdirán
PONERpondrépondráspondrápondremospondréispondrán
QUERERquerréquerrásquerráquerremosquerréisquerrán
VALERvaldrévaldrásvaldrávaldremosvaldréisvaldrán
VENIRvendrévendrásvendrávendremosvendréisvendrán

As you can see in the previous chart, some verbs such as “DECIR” will change their stem from “DEC” to “DI”. Others, such as TENER, will change their stem from “TEN” to “TEND”. The rest of the verb will be conjugated following the rules we use for regular verbs, just as we did with this last group of examples:

  • La película habrá terminado para cuando regresemos. (The movie will be over by the time we get back.)
  • Felix hará la tarea después de almorzar. (Felix will do his homework after lunch.)
  • Creo que yo no podré terminar el reporte a tiempo. (I think I won’t be able to finish the report on time.)
  • Mañana sabremos si aprobamos el examen o no. (Tomorrow we will know if we pass the exam or not.)
  • ¡Ya es tarde! Tendré que tomar un taxi. (It’s too late! I’ll have to take a taxi.)
  • Esa caja no cabrá en el auto porque es muy grande. (That box won’t fit in the car because it’s too big.)
  • ¿Qué pondrás tú para el banquete? (What will you bring for the banquet?)
  • Vosotros diréis el discurso en la graduación. (You will give the speech at graduation.)
  • Seguramente ellos querrán comprar la casa. (Surely they will want to buy the house.)
  • Este teléfono valdrá más al expirar la oferta. (This phone will be worth more when the offer expires.)
  • Mis hijos vendrán a casa para celebrar la navidad. (My children are coming home to celebrate Christmas.)

Interactive quiz

It is time to put into practice everything we have covered in the lesson with the exercises of an interactive quiz. We hope this lesson was very useful to you. ¡Hasta la próxima!

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