How do you form the future tense in Spanish?
There is no stem to find: the infinitive is the stem. Hablar gives hablaré, comer gives comeré, vivir gives viviré, and every verb takes the same six endings whatever its conjugation.
Every ending carries a written accent except -emos: hablaré, hablarás, hablará, hablaréis, hablarán — but hablaremos. The accent does real work: hablará is he will speak, and hablara, without it, is a past subjunctive.
The endings look like the present of haber — he, has, ha, hemos, habéis, han — because that is where they come from. Spanish built its future by joining the infinitive to haber: amar he, cantar he, which at first meant I have to love, I have to sing. The sense of obligation faded and the two words fused.
| Person | Ending | hablar · comer · vivir |
|---|---|---|
| yo | -é | hablaré · comeré · viviré |
| tú | -ás | hablarás · comerás · vivirás |
| él, ella, usted | -á | hablará · comerá · vivirá |
| nosotros | -emos | hablaremos · comeremos · viviremos |
| vosotros | -éis | hablaréis · comeréis · viviréis |
| ellos, ustedes | -án | hablarán · comerán · vivirán |
The 12 irregular verbs in the future
After the short stem the endings are the usual ones: tendré, tendrás, tendrá, tendremos, tendréis, tendrán. The conditional uses the same twelve stems — tendría, podría, diría, haría — so they are learned once for two tenses.
The mistakes are the regular forms a learner would build from the rule: teneré, poderé, saberé, haceré, deciré. The grammar itself sets three of them beside the right form — sabré, not saberé; haré, not haceré; diré, not deciré. Querré keeps both r's; the academies call quedré, a form heard in popular speech, a vulgarism.
Habrá is the future of hay: mañana no habrá función — there will be no performance tomorrow. Hay vs está has the rest of that verb.
| What happens | Verbs | Future (yo) |
|---|---|---|
| A d replaces the vowel | tener, poner, venir, salir, valer | tendré, pondré, vendré, saldré, valdré |
| The vowel drops | poder, saber, caber, haber, querer | podré, sabré, cabré, habré, querré |
| The stem shortens | hacer, decir | haré, diré |
Do compound verbs keep the irregular stem?
A compound takes its verb's short stem: mantener gives mantendré, proponer gives propondré, deshacer gives desharé. Satisfacer is a compound of the old verb facer and goes with hacer — satisfaré; the academies call satisfaceré incorrect, though not rare, even in writing.
The compounds of decir split three ways. Bendecir and maldecir are regular in the future: bendeciré, maldeciré. Predecir accepts both forms, with predeciré the usual one today and prediré rare. Contradecir accepts both too: contradiré, and in some regions contradeciré in normal use. That is why the quiz above never asks about them.
| Verbs | Future (yo) |
|---|---|
| mantener, obtener, detener | mantendré, obtendré, detendré |
| proponer, suponer, componer | propondré, supondré, compondré |
| prevenir | prevendré |
| deshacer, rehacer, satisfacer | desharé, reharé, satisfaré |
| bendecir, maldecir | bendeciré, maldeciré |
| predecir, contradecir | predeciré or prediré; contradiré or contradeciré |
Will or going to? Hablaré vs voy a hablar
Both the future and ir a + infinitive are right, and the grammar prints them as equals: te gustará or te va a gustar, yo creo que lloverá or va a llover. The difference is register and region, not correctness. Ir a + infinitive is far more frequent in speech than in writing, and the going-to futures are more characteristic of American Spanish than of European; the one-word future is common to every variety.
Ir a is the usual choice when there are signs the thing is about to happen — va a llover, with the sky already dark. Keep its a: voy a hablar, never voy hablar. And the plain present does the job for a plan with a time on it: me voy dentro de dos meses, mañana tengo clase.
The future also promises (me disculparé con él), predicts (lloverá) and, in the second person, orders: te disculparás mañana con él — and the commandment no matarás.
| Form | Example | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| the future | Lloverá mañana. | all Spanish; more in writing |
| ir a + infinitive | Va a llover. | everyday speech; about to happen |
| the present | Me voy dentro de dos meses. | a plan with a time attached |
The future that guesses: serán las ocho
Spanish uses the future to guess about right now. Serán las ocho does not say it will be eight; it says it is probably eight — the grammar glosses it as probablemente son las ocho, or deben de ser las ocho. In a question it wonders aloud: ¿dónde estará Ana? — where can Ana be?
English does the same job with must, probably and I wonder. The guess works with states and ongoing activities — being, having, working — not with one-off events: se caerá de la escalera can only be a prediction.
Ir a does not usually carry this meaning: van a ser las dos says it is about to be two, not that it probably is. For the other way to guess — deben de ser las ocho — see tener que, deber or hay que.
| Spanish | What it says |
|---|---|
| Serán las ocho. | It must be about eight. |
| Estará enfadado conmigo. | He's probably angry with me. |
| ¿A qué se dedicará? | I wonder what he does for a living. |
| Trabajará en cosas de informática. | He probably works in something to do with computers. |
Can you use the future after si or cuando?
After si, the present does the work of the future: si llueve, me quedaré en casa — never si lloverá. The grammar's example of what Spanish no longer accepts is si vendrás, llámame. Si clauses has the whole pattern.
After cuando, a moment that has not happened yet takes the subjunctive: te lo llevaré cuando esté listo, cuando llegue te llamo. The academies do not consider cuando + the future correct today. It was normal in medieval and classical Spanish, and it is still heard in Catalonia and parts of Aragon, under the influence of Catalan, and in some Central American varieties. The present subjunctive quiz drills that cuando.
One si does take the future: the si that means whether. No sé si vendrá — I don't know whether she will come — is a question inside a sentence, not a condition, and it takes whatever tense the question needs.
| After | Spanish uses | Example |
|---|---|---|
| si (if) | the present | Si llueve, me quedaré en casa. |
| cuando (when) | the subjunctive | Te lo llevaré cuando esté listo. |
| mientras (while) | the present | Puede usted sentarse mientras espera. |
Why do English speakers get the future wrong?
English makes its future with a separate word, will, so the Spanish endings feel like extra work — and the twelve short stems break the one rule the tense has. The slips are predictable: teneré for tendré, poderé for podré, haceré for haré; the accent left off, which turns hablará into another tense; and, after cuando, the indicative or the future where Spanish wants the subjunctive, because English uses a plain present there — when I arrive, cuando llegue.
Our own grading data shows how often. Nivelo grades every conversation turn and writing task against the grammar it uses. Across 26 learners and 293 future forms (recounted 24 September 2026), 33% were wrong: 39% at A2, 28% at B1 and 25% at B2. The count covers every slip in the tense — a wrong stem, a missing accent, a future where another form was needed. It is a count of our own learners, not a study.
What comes after the future tense?
The conditional uses the same twelve stems — tendría, podría, diría — and si clauses decide what follows si. The present subjunctive is what cuando takes when the moment has not come yet. Stem-changing verbs are the present tense's own irregulars: pienso, puedo, tengo. Tener que, deber or hay que covers what has to happen, and hace vs desde hace how long ago. The irregular preterite is the past's own list of new stems: tuve, pude, hice. The free Spanish level test places you on the A1–C2 scale in five minutes; how to go from A2 to B1 is the plan for the stretch where this tense settles.