The Spanish simple future: -ré, and what Peruvians use it for
The simple future adds -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -án to the infinitive: hablaré, comeré, viviré. For actual plans Peruvians mostly say voy a hablar. The -ré form is used far more often for probability about the present: estará en casa means "he's probably home", and serán las tres means "it must be about three".
Draft copy. Every claim needs a native-speaker check before publishing — the byline is what makes this citable, so it has to be earned.
The inversion worth knowing first
The tense is called the future. In Peru it is used for the present more often than for the future.
- ¿Dónde está Marco? — Estará en su casa. — he’s probably at home.
- ¿Qué hora es? — Serán las tres. — it must be about three.
- Tendrá unos cuarenta años. — he’s about forty, I’d guess.
- Será que no le llegó el mensaje. — maybe the message didn’t reach him.
None of those sentences is about the future at all. They are guesses about right now, and the -ré future is how Spanish marks a guess.
Meanwhile, the thing the tense is named after — an actual plan — usually comes out as voy a:
- Mañana voy a ir al mercado.
- El sábado vamos a ver a mi mamá.
So learn the forms, and then expect to meet them doing the other job.
The forms
One set of endings for all three conjugations, stuck onto the whole infinitive. Nothing is chopped off.
| hablar | comer | vivir | |
|---|---|---|---|
| yo | hablaré | comeré | viviré |
| tú | hablarás | comerás | vivirás |
| usted / él / ella | hablará | comerá | vivirá |
| nosotros | hablaremos | comeremos | viviremos |
| ustedes / ellos | hablarán | comerán | vivirán |
Every form but nosotros carries a written accent. That is not decoration — hablo and hablará are different words.
The twelve irregular stems
The endings never change. Only the stem does, and it does so in three tidy groups.
Group 1 — the vowel becomes a d.
| verb | stem | yo |
|---|---|---|
| poner | pondr- | pondré |
| salir | saldr- | saldré |
| tener | tendr- | tendré |
| venir | vendr- | vendré |
| valer | valdr- | valdré |
Group 2 — the vowel drops out.
| verb | stem | yo |
|---|---|---|
| haber | habr- | habré |
| poder | podr- | podré |
| querer | querr- | querré |
| saber | sabr- | sabré |
Group 3 — two that just change.
| verb | stem | yo |
|---|---|---|
| decir | dir- | diré |
| hacer | har- | haré |
Habrá is the future of hay, and like hay it has no plural: habrá mucha gente, never habrán.
Where it really is a future
The -ré future has not disappeared. It survives in four places, and they are all slightly raised in register or in feeling.
Promises. Te llamaré, te lo prometo.
Predictions and forecasts. Mañana lloverá en la sierra. This is the voice of a weather report, not of a friend.
Reassurance. No te preocupes, todo saldrá bien.
Warnings and refusals. No volverás a hacer eso.
What they have in common is that none of them is a diary entry. For a diary entry — a plan with a date — Peru uses voy a.
Try it
- ¿Qué hora ___? — ___ las cuatro. (guessing)
- Mañana ___ que ir al banco. (tener)
- ___ mucha gente en el concierto. (haber)
- El domingo ___ a la playa. (the ordinary Lima way to announce a plan)
→ 1 será / Serán · 2 tendré · 3 Habrá · 4 voy a ir.
Related
- Ir + a: the future tense you will actually use — the everyday future, and the one to reach for first
- The Spanish conditional: would, politeness, and guessing — the same guessing job, aimed at the past: estaría en su casa
- In Peru, “de repente” means maybe — the other way Peruvians hedge
Topics The presentPeruvian Spanish
Future tense, present meaning
Eight on the -ré forms, and on the guessing job they spend most of their time doing in Peru.
-
1Your friend is not picking up. You reckon he is at home. In Lima you would say:
Answer
Estará en casa. — The *-ré* future is how Spanish marks a guess about right now — *estará* is “he's probably home”. *Estaría* would guess about the past instead.
-
2“¿Qué hora será?” means:
Answer
What time is it, I wonder? — Future forms of *ser* with the clock are guesses, not predictions. The answer comes back the same way: *serán las tres*.
-
3Mañana ___ que ir al banco.
Answer
tendré — *Tener* is in the group whose vowel turns into a *d*: *tendr-* plus the normal endings. *Tendría* is the conditional — “I would have to”.
-
4Which is how a Peruvian would normally announce a plan for Saturday?
Answer
El sábado voy a ir a Barranco. — Real plans come out as *voy a* in Peru. *Iré* is not wrong, but it belongs to promises and forecasts rather than to what you are doing at the weekend.
-
5¿Qué ___ ustedes el domingo?
Answer
harán — *Hacer* has the irregular stem *har-*. *Harían* is the conditional, which would ask what they would do rather than what they will.
-
6“Tendrá unos cuarenta años” means:
Answer
He is about forty, I'd guess. — Guessing someone's age is one of the commonest uses of this tense. Nothing about the sentence is in the future.
-
7___ mucha gente en el concierto.
Answer
Habrá — *Habrá* is the future of *hay*, and like *hay* it never goes plural however many people there are. *Habrán* is a frequent mistake, even among native speakers.
-
8No te preocupes, todo ___ bien.
Answer
saldrá — *Salir* takes the *d* stem: *saldr-*. Reassurance is one of the four places where the *-ré* future really is about the future.