Future tense

English grammar provides a number of ways to indicate the future nature of an occurrence. Some argue that English does not have a future tense[3]—that is, a grammatical form that always indicates futurity—nor does it have a mandatory form for the expression of futurity. However, there are several generally accepted ways to indicate futurity in English, and some of them—particularly those that use will or shall—are frequently described as future tense.

The will/shall future consists of the modal verb will or shall together with the bare infinitive of the main verb, as in "He will win easily" or "I shall do it when time permits". (Prescriptive grammarians prefer will in the second and third persons and shall in the first person, reversing the forms to express obligation or determination, but in practice shall and will are generally used interchangeably,[4] with will being more common. For details see shall and will.) The meaning of this construction is close to that expressed by the future tense in other languages. However the same construction with will or shall can have other meanings that do not indicate futurity, or else indicate some modality in addition to futurity (as in "He will make rude remarks", meaning he has a habit of doing so, or, "You shall act on my behalf", giving an order). For details of these meanings, see the sections on will and shall in the article on English modal verbs.

The form of the will/shall future described above is frequently called the simple future (or future simple). Other constructions provide additional auxiliaries that express particular aspects: the future progressive (or future continuous) as in "He will be working"; the future perfect as in "They will have finished"; and the future perfect progressive as in "You will have been practising." For detail on these, see the relevant sections of Uses of English verb forms. (For more on expressions of relative tense, such as the future perfect, see also the section above.)

Several other English constructions commonly refer to the future:

• Present tense forms, as in "The train leaves at five," or, "My cousins arrive tomorrow." Since these grammatical forms are used more canonically to refer to present situations, they are not generally described as future tense; in sentences like those just given they may be described as "present tense with future meaning". Use of the present tense (rather than forms with will) is mandatory in some subordinate clauses referring to the future, such as "If I feel better next week, ..." and "As soon as they arrive, ...". For more details see the sections on the simple present, present progressive and dependent clauses in the article on English verb forms.
• The going-to future, e.g., "John is going to leave tonight."
• The construction with a finite form of the copula verb be together with the to-infinitive, e.g., "John is to leave tonight". (With the zero copula of newspaper headline style, this becomes simply "John to leave tonight".) For details see am to.
• The construction with to be about to, e.g., "John is about to leave", referring to the expected immediate future. (A number of lexical expressions with similar meaning also exist, such as to be on the point of (doing something).)
• Use of modal verbs with future meaning, to combine the expression of future time with certain modality: "I must do this" (also mun in Northern English dialect); "We should help him"; "I can get out of here"; "We may win"; "You might succeed". The same modal verbs are also often used with present rather than future reference. For details of their meanings and usage, see English modal verbs.

Questions and negatives are formed from all of the above constructions in the regular manner: see Questions and Negation in the English grammar article. The auxiliaries will and shall form the contracted negations won't and shan't (they can also sometimes be contracted when not negated, to 'll, such as in I'll find it).

The various ways of expressing the future carry different meanings, implying not just futurity but also aspect (the way an action or state takes place in time) and/or modality (the attitude of the speaker toward the action or state).[2][5] The precise interpretation must be based on the context. In particular there is sometimes a distinction in usage between the will/shall future and the going-to future (although in some contexts they are interchangeable). For more information see the going-to future article.

The use of the present tense in future meaning is much more common in German than it is in English. Especially in colloquial German, but also in the written standard language, future tenses are quite rarely used if the future meaning is already evident through context or a temporal adverb or clause. For example:

• In zehn Jahren bin ich Millionär.

"In ten years, I shall be a millionaire."

Literally: "In ten years am I millionaire."

German uses an auxiliary for the future: werden (which can also mean "to become.") The main verb after werden is a simple infinitive. The infinitive main verb is placed at the end of the sentence or clause. For example:

• Ich werde dich morgen nach der Arbeit anrufen.

"I shall call you tomorrow after work."

Literally: "I will you tomorrow after work call."

A future perfect (in German referred to as Futur II) can be formed by means of replacing the simple infinitive with a past infinitive (past participle + infititive of the relevant auxiliary):

• Ich werde dich angerufen haben

"I shall have called you."

Some 17th and 18th century grammarians (e.g. J. Kromeyer, J. C. Gottsched, J. B. v. Antesperg) also labeled other future forms, like:

• imperative future: du sollst loben (you shall praise)
• indicative uncertain future (German: ungewiss zukünftige Zeit, Latin: tempus futurum incertum): ich will loben (I want to praise)
• indicative certain future (German: gewiss künftige Zeit, Latin: tempus futurum certum), or indicative future I: ich werde loben (I shall praise)
• indicative conditional future (German: bedingt zukünftige Zeit, Latin: tempus futurum conditionatum), or conjunctive II future: ich würde loben (I would praise)

All these wordings do still exist, but nowadays (usually) only ich werde loben (future I) and sometimes ich würde loben (conjunctive II future) are labeled future forms.

Dutch can express the future in three ways:[6]

• gaan + infinitive: Ik ga het boek lezen (I'm going to read the book). "Gaan" is a cognate of "to go".
• zullen + infinitive: Ik zal het boek lezen (I will/shall read the book). "Zullen" is a cognate of "shall".
• present tense + context or a temporal adverb or clause: Hoe lang blijft hij in Nederland? (How long is he staying in the Netherlands?) Its English-language equivalent uses the continuous or imperfective aspect.

Zullen + infinitive is more similar to shall than to will. It is used to:[7]

• express a promise or a proposal
• emphasize that something will certainly happen
• express that an event is likely going to take place (by explicitly mentioning the probability)

English will and Dutch wil, although cognates, have over the centuries shifted in meaning, such that will is almost identical to shall, whereas Dutch wil means want, as in Ik wil het doen (I want to do it).

Gaan + infinitive can be compared with the English "going to" . It is used:

• to express an intended action (but not a promise, proposal, or solemn plan)
• to say that an event is going to take place (without emphasizing the certainty or mentioning the probability)

Icelandic descends from Old Norse and is scarcely changed from it in the written form. Icelandic uses the auxiliaries:

• munu expressing a probable future
• skulu (shall) implying obligation or determination.

It is believed that in Old Norse munu expressed the pure future, skulu (shall) expressed obligation or determination as it still does, and a third auxiliary, vilja ("will"), expressed will or intent.

A common auxiliary expression of the future, which takes the compound infinitive, is:

• ætla expressing intention.

(So Ég ætla að koma; I will come)

The verb verða (become) is also very commonly used in the meaning "will be", making the lesser used mun vera (will be) have a bit stronger emphasis on the future than the English translation has.

Like many other Germanic languages, the future can also be expressed by simply using the present tense and having in the sentence words that imply future action (e.g. "tomorrow"). Because of this, if it is already evident from the sentence that one is talking about the future, then the verb is almost always in the present tense.

Current standard Norwegian auxiliaries are:

• vil (cognate with "will"; used to indicate desire)
• skal (cognate with "shall"; used to indicate intent)
• kan (cognate with "can"; used to indicate ability)
• kommer/kjem til å (future regardless of intention)

An occasional usage is:

• mon (or in Nynorsk mun.).
• etla (Nynorsk)

In Danish the future is usually unmarked, using the present tense form. Sometimes the modals vil ("want") and skal ("must") are used instead to indicate futurity, and sometimes blive "become" can have the meaning "will be". The following distinctions illustrate some of their uses:

Det vil aldrig ske "That will never happen" (a prediction) but Det skal ej ske "That shall not happen" (a promise).

Hvad skal du i aften? "What will you (do) tonight?"; Jeg skal besøge mine forældre i weekenden "I shall visit my parents this weekend"; Skal du hjem nu? "Will you go (are you going) home now?".

Han vil hentes "He wants to_be_picked_up"; Han skal hentes "He must be_picked_up". Han vil blive hentet "He will become (get) picked_up (it's already arranged)", but Han skal blive hentet "He will become (be) picked_up (I promise)".

Jeg skal til fødselsdag i morgen "I shall (go) to (a) birthday_party tomorrow". Det bliver sjov "That becomes (will be) fun". Vi bliver 15 "We become (shall be) 15 (there will be fifteen of us)". Han bliver 40 "He becomes (will be) 40".

Swedish[1]^{:pp.107–108} skall strongly implies intention, but with an adverb such as nog "probably" it can avoid the implication of intentionality: Det här skall nog gå bra "This will probably go well". However, the past tense of skall, skulle, can be used without such an adverb to express predictions in the past: Pelle sa, att det skulle bli varmt på eftermiddagen "Pelle said that it would be warm in the afternoon."

Pure future, regardless of intention, is usually expressed with kommer att (literally: "comes to"): Det här kommer att gå bra "This will go well", Du kommer att överleva det här "You will survive this".

Generally, future tense is sparsely used in spoken Swedish, with the verb instead being put in present tense and accompanied by a distinct time specification: Jag åker till Spanien på fredag "I travel to Spain on Friday" Då ses vi imorgon. "Then we meet tomorrow"

While Classical Latin used a set of suffixes to the main verb for the future tense, later Vulgar Latin adopted the use of habere ("to have") with the infinitive, as for example:

petant aut non petant venire habet[8] ("whether they ask or do not ask, it will come")

From this construction, the major Western Romance languages have simple future tense forms that derive from the infinitive followed by a conjugated form of the verb "to have" (Latin habere). As the auxiliary verb lost its modal force (from a verb expressing obligation, desire, or intention, to a simple marker of tense), it also lost syntactic autonomy (becoming an enclitic) and phonological substance (e.g., Latin first singular habeo > ayyo > Old French ai, Modern French [e]).

Thus the sequence of Latin verbs amare habeo ("I have to love") gave rise to French aimerai, Spanish amaré, etc. "I will love".[9][10]

Phonetic changes also affected the infinitive in the evolution of this form, so that in the modern languages the future stem is not always identical to the infinitive. Consider the following Spanish examples:

• "go out": infinitive salir → 1st. sing. future saldré in lieu of *saliré
• "know": infinitive saber → 2nd. sing future "sabrás" in lieu of *saberás
• "do": infinitive hacer → 3rd sing. future hará in lieu of *hacerá
• "want": infinitive querer → 3rd pl. future querrán in lieu of *quererán

Romanian, although a Romance language, patterns like Balkan languages such as Greek and Serbo-Croatian (cf. Balkan sprachbund) in that it uses reflexes of the verb vrea (to want):

• "love": infinitive a iubi → 3rd sing. future va iubi

Romanian also forms a future tense from the subjunctive, with a preceding particle, o, also derived from vrea:

• "love": infinitive a iubi → 3rd sing. future o să iubească (lit. (want) that he love)

In Portuguese, there is a simple future conjugation, which is quite similar to the Spanish one (see the table below):

However, there are multiple composed future conjugations such as the following ones:

• vou cantar (Auxiliary go)
• irei cantar (Auxiliary go)
• vim cantar (Auxiliary come)
• venho cantar (Auxiliary come)
• virei cantar (Auxiliary come)
• hei de cantar (Auxiliary exist)
• vou estar cantando (Auxiliaries go + be)
• estarei cantando (Auxiliary be)

Combinations of auxiliary and event verbs such as venho vir and venho ir are not used because the future auxiliaries vim/venho/irei (come) have a residue meaning of coming: vim cantar (I came here to sing), venho cantar (I will sing here), and virei cantar (I will sing here) mean that the speaker will do the described action at the same place where he or she is now. In particular, vou is not only the most used future auxiliary in Portuguese and it is equivalent to will in English. It is also the most used simple future form for the verb ir (to go) meaning will go.

In Portuguese a pronoun may be placed between the root verb and the future tense ending, as in dar-lhe-ei ("I will give it to you"), where the pronoun lhe ("to you") is inserted into the future verb darei ("(I) will give"), between the stem (dar) and the future tense ending (ei). This phenomenon is called mesoclisis.

Sardinian, due to its early breaking off from Proto-Romance, displays different traits in its morphology. Notably, in the future tense, the verb habeo (aere in Sardinian) is instead proclitic, and does not have an individual conjugation on the verb. Instead, aere is conjugated into present tense, and the other verb's infinitive form is used. Thusly, app'aere, app'appidu and app'aere appidu are aere's future, perfect, and future perfect.

In the Slovak language, the future tense is formed only with verbs with imperfective grammatical aspect, with the auxiliary verb byť (to be) in future tense:

To this auxiliary verb, the infinitive of the verb to be put into future tense is simply appended:

• robiť (to do, to work): budem robiť (I will work, I will be working)
• hovoriť (to speak, to talk): budeme hovoriť (we will speak/talk, we will be speaking/talking)

Polish language uses both suffixes and auxiliary verbs to express the sense of futurity. The only verb which has its own future conjugation is być (to be):

The future tense can be formed in two different ways depending on the aspect of the verb. For imperfective verbs, Polish uses the future tense of być plus the past tense of the verb at the third person or the infinitive. For instance:

• mówić (to say/speak/talk/tell):

-będę mówił (m)/mówiła (f)/ mówiło (n)/mówić (I will say, I will be saying).

-będziesz mówił (m) / mówiła (f) / mówiło (n)/mówić (You will say, you will be saying).

-będzie mówił (m) / mówiła (f) / mówiło (n)/mówić (He/she/it will say, he/she/it will be saying).

-będziemy mówili (mp) / mówiły (nmp) / mówić (We will say, we will be saying).

-będziecie mówili (mp) / mówiły (nmp) / mówić (You will say, you will be saying).

-będą mówili (mp) / mówiły (nmp) / mówić (They will say, they will be saying).

(m) refers to a male, (f) to a female and (n) is neuter, used with inanimate objects. In Plural, (mp) refers to the masculine-personal gender and (nmp) to non-masculine-personal. The form with the infinitive is less common.

Perfective verbs have only the past and future tenses. As they have no present tense, the rules used to form the present tense in imperfective verbs are used to give the sense of futurity to perfective verbs. For instance, the perfective form of mówić is conjugated as follows:

• powiedzieć (to say/speak/talk/tell)

-powiem (I will say, I will be saying)

-powiesz (You will say, you will be saying)

-powie (He/she/it will say, he/she/it will be saying)

-powiemy (We will say, we will be saying)

-powiecie (You will say, you will be saying)

-powiedzą (They will say, they will be saying)

This example follows the rules of the verbs which conjugate according to the model -em, esz. The other models are -am, asz, -ę, esz, -ę, isz and -ę, ysz. Irregular verbs may change their root, but never their desinence (like in the example above where the root powi changes to powiedz in the third person plural).

In Scottish Gaelic, the future tense is formed in regular verbs by adding aidh or idh to the end of the root form of the verb (idh is used if the final vowel in the root is i).

• Danns. (dance.) -> Dannsaidh mi. (I will dance.)
• Cuir. (put.) -> Cuiridh i. (She will put.)

Inserting cha before the root forms the negative. The initial consonant of the root is lenited where possible, except for d, t or s, which in certain cases is not lenited. Chan is substituted if the root begins with a vowel or an f followed by a vowel, which is also lenited.

• Cha tèid mi... (I will not go...)
• Chan fheuch am peasan sin idir. (That brat will not try at all.)

In the interrogative, an is placed before the root of the verb. If the root begins with b, f, m, or p, am is used instead.

• An ith thu sin? (Will you eat that?)
• Am pòg thu i? (Will you kiss her?)

As in English, some forms are irregular - mostly common verbs. For example, the root for the word "to see" is faic, but the positive future tense form "will see" is chì.

The copula is bidh (will be), cha bhi (will not be), am bi (interrogative), and nach bi (negative interrogative).

• Bidh mi a' tighinn! (I shall be coming!)
• Cha bhi e an seo a-màireach. (He will not be here tomorrow.)
• Am bi thu air falbh as t-samhradh? (Will you be away this summer?)
• Nach bi sibh a' fuireach airson a' bhìdh? (Will not you be staying for the food, sir?)

The linking verb (that will be) is gum bi (positive) or nach bi (negative).

• Tha ise ag ràdh gum bi esan a' dol. (She said that he will be going.)
• Tha mi an dòchas nach bi iad sgìth. (I hope that they will not be tired.)

In Irish, the future tense is formed two ways in regular verbs, depending on verb class. Class I verbs add faidh or fidh to the end of the root form of the verb (fidh is used if the final vowel in the root is e or i).

• Glan. (clean.) -> Glanfaidh mé. (I will clean.)
• Cuir. (put.) -> Cuirfidh sí. (She will put.)

Class II verbs add óidh or eoidh to the end of the root form of the verb (eoidh is used if the final vowel in the root is e, i, or í).

• Eistigh. (listen.) -> Eisteoidh mé. (I will listen.)
• Imir. (play.) -> Imreoidh sí. (She will play.)

Both class I and class II verbs have a special form for the 1st person plural:

• Glan. (clean.) -> Glanfaimid. (We will clean.)
• Cuir. (put.) -> Cuirfimid. (We will put.)
• Eistigh. (listen.) -> Eisteoimid. (We will listen.)
• Imir. (put.) -> Imreoimid. (We will play.)

The negative is formed by adding ní. The initial consonant of the root is lenited.

• Ní fhreastalóidh mé... (I will not serve...)

In the interrogative, an is placed before the root of the verb, which causes eclipsis.

• An iosfaith tú sin? (Will you eat that?)
• An bpogfaigh tú í? (Will you kiss her?)

Of the ten listed irregular verbs in Irish, six show irregular future forms:

• Abair. (say.) -> Déarfaidh sí. (She will say.) (present deireann)
• Beir. (catch/bring.) -> Béarfaidh sí. (She will bring.) (present beireann)
• Faigh. (get.) -> Gheobhaidh sí. (She will get.) (present faigheann)
• Ith. (eat.) -> Iosfaidh sí. (She will eat.) (present itheann)
• Tar. (come.) -> Tiocfaidh sí. (She will come.) (present tagann)
• Teigh. (go.) -> Rachaidh sí. (She will go.) (present téann)

One additional irregular verb has an alternate future form:

• Feic. (see.) -> Chífidh sí. (She will see.) (regular future feicfidh)

The future of verb tá (be) is beidh (1pl. beimid). The copula is ("is") is is (will be), ní (will not be), an (interrogative), and nach (negative interrogative).

The linking verb (that will be) is go mbí (positive) or nach bí (negative).

• Duirt sí go mbeidh sé ag dul. (She said that he will be going.)
• Tá súil agam nach mbeidh tuirse acu. (I hope that they will not be tired.)

In Welsh, most verbal functions are expressed using constructions with bod (to be). The future may be expressed in the same way using the future tense of bod.

Fe fydda i yn... (I will...)
Fe fyddi di yn... (thou wilt...)
Fe fydd e yn... (he will...) etc.

(The affirmative marker "fe" has no real translation in English and can easily be left out or replaced with 'mi' in North Wales. Neither word should be confused with subject pronouns which follow the verb in Welsh).

More commonly Welsh uses a construction with "Mynd" (to go)

"Rwy'n mynd i weld y ffilm yfory" (I'm going to see the film tomorrow)

Futurity can also be expressed by using words that imply future action

Dwi'n mynd yna heddiw: I am going there today.

The simple future, which uses verb suffixes conjugated with the verb, is used to express determination of action or to emphasise confidence in outcome. As in the future of bod, the affirmative marker is fe.

In Hindi, verbs can be conjugated for three grammatical aspects (habitual, perfective, and progressive) and five grammatical moods (indicative, presumptive, subjunctive, contrafactual, and imperative). Out of the three aspects, the habitual mood of Hindi cannot be conjugated into the future tense. The indicative future is constructed from the subjunctive future forms. Imperatives in Hindi can also be put into future tense.[11]

Indicative and Subjunctive future

There are two future subjunctive moods in modern Hindi, first the regular subjunctive and the second, the perfective subjunctive which superficially has the same form as the perfective aspect forms of verbs but still expresses future events, it is used with if clauses and relative clauses. In a semantic analysis, this use of the perfective aspect marker would not be considered perfective, since it is more closely related to subjunctive usage. Only the superficial form is identical to that of the perfective.[12] This perfective subjunctive cannot be used as a coupla for aspectual participles.

The future indicative forms are constructed using the future subjuntive forms of verbs by adding the future suffix गा (-gā) which declines for number and gender of the grammatical person. The table below shows the future subjunctive and indicative forms of the verb करना karnā (to do).

Prospective future

The prospective future is constructed using the prospective future participle which is constructed from the oblique infinitive by adding the suffix वाला (-vālā) which also declines for the number and the gender of the pronoun. The participle is always followed by the auxiliary verb होना (honā) in its conjugated forms. The copula होना (honā) can be put into four grammatical moods: indicative, presumptive, subjunctive, and contrafactual.[13] The table below shows the indicative mood forms of the prospective future for the verb करना karnā (to do).

Imperative future

Imperatives in Hindi can be conjugated into two tenses, present and future tense. The conjugations are mentioned in the table below for the verb करना karnā (to do). Hindi also has imperatives forms which are constructed form the subjunctive form of the verbs for the formal 2nd person pronoun आप (āp), and also third person pronouns to give indirect commands.[14][15]

Biblical Hebrew has a distinction between past and future tenses which is similar in form to those used in other Semitic languages such as Arabic and Aramaic. Gesenius refers to the past and future verb forms as Perfect and Imperfect,[16] respectively, separating completed action from uncompleted action. However, the usage of verbs in these forms does not always have the same temporal meaning as in Indo-European languages, mainly due to the common use of a construct of inverting the time reference with a prefix "Waw consecutive" (ו' ההיפוך). With this construct, the Perfect-consecutive refers to the future[17] and the Imperfect-consecutive refers to the past.

Usage of the imperfect to discuss future events is somewhat uncommon in Biblical Hebrew, as the Bible mainly discusses past events. It can be found in quoted speech, such as in the words of Moses (imperfect verbs stressed):

¹ וַיַּעַן מֹשֶׁה, וַיֹּאמֶר, וְהֵן לֹא-יַאֲמִינוּ לִי, וְלֹא יִשְׁמְעוּ בְּקֹלִי: כִּי יֹאמְרוּ, לֹא-נִרְאָה אֵלֶיךָ יְהֹוָה

¹ And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.

— Exodus 4:1[18]

The Perfect-consecutive is commonly found in prophetic text, describing an unspecified future, as in the Book of Isaiah:

² וְהָיָה בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים, נָכוֹן יִהְיֶה הַר בֵּית-יְהוָה בְּרֹאשׁ הֶהָרִים, וְנִשָּׂא, מִגְּבָעוֹת; וְנָהֲרוּ אֵלָיו, כָּל-הַגּוֹיִם.

² In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

— Isaiah 2:2[19]

Modern Hebrew always employs the imperfect as the future tense (and the perfect as the past tense). The usage of "Waw consecutive" has practically disappeared, except for quotes from the Bible and Poetic language.

To form future tense in Arabic the prefix (سـ) "sa" is added to the present tense verb, or (سوف) "sawfa".[20]

For example, consider the sentence: I eat apples > "آكلُ تفاحاً" "Akulu tuffahan"

To express the future we have two ways: I will eat apples > "سـآكلُ تفاحاً" "Saakulu tuffahan" or: I will eat apples > "سوف آكلُ تفاحاً" "Sawfa akulu tuffahan"

The first is written as part of the verb, whereas the latter is written as a Clitic to indicate the future but preceding the verb.

In Classical Arabic the latter indicates an individual future action that usually takes place further in the future than the first mentioned form, which is usually used with verbs that relate to other actions, and mostly referring to rather near future actions. However, in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) the distinction is minimal.

Moreover, the indication of the future tense in dialectal Arabic is quite varied from one dialect to the next. Generally speaking, the words meaning "want to" (بدي / أريد أن), "go to" (أروح), "intend to"(ناوي /نويت), and many others are used daily to indicate future actions.[21] In Moroccan Arabic, the word "Ghad" (غاد) is used to indicate future, which literally means "there" (or there is to happen), that is in some way similar to the English formation "there I go.."

The future marker in Jamaican Creole is /de go/[24]^{:pp. 93–95} or /a go/: /de go hapm/ "is going to happen", /mi a go ɹon/ "I am going to run".

In Belizean Creole, the future tense is indicated by a mandatory invariant pre-verbal particle /(w)a(n)/, /gwein/, or /gouɲ/.

In Gullah the future is indicated by the pre-verbal marker gwine: Uh gwine he'p dem "I'm going to help them".

In Hawaiian Creole, the pre-verbal future marker is gon:[25] Ai gon bai wan pikap "I'm going to buy a pickup".

Haitian Creole, based on a French superstrate, interchangeably uses pral or va (from French 3rd person singular va "goes") pre-verbally to indicate the future:[26] Mwen va fini lit. "I go finish"; Li pral vini jodi a "He will come today".