As in English there are many ways to indicate the future in Spanish. These can be separated into “Future Tense” (I will) and “Conditional Tense” ( I could, I would, I should). While to know Spanish well you will need to learn all of the tenses, you can usually get by with the more simple future tense and fake the others by judiciously adding possibly (posible “po-see-blay”). I’ll work with the conditional tense on another post.

There are two ways to indicate the future tense one is a true conjugation the other is by adding the conjugated verb ir (to go) in front of the verb that you want to do. While you can pretty much use either, they both have a little different feeling to them.

Future Tense Conjugation

This is actually pretty simple. Just add é, ás, á, emos, or án to the end of the verb. For example the verb Ver (to See). Don’t forget to add a little more emphasis when you see the accent mark.

• veré – I will see
• verás – You will see
• verá He/she/it will see
• veremos – We will see
• verán – They will see

Adding that ending will make any verb future, you choose which ending to add depending on who will be doing the action.

There is a second way of creating a future tense. You actually hear this more commonly in the Dominican Republic this one uses the conjugation of the verb ir (to go) and then add the verb that you are wanting to do. This produces a feeling more like “I’m Going to” do something instead of “I will” do something. Once again let’s use the example of Ver (to See)

• voy a ver – I am going to see
• vas a ver – you are going to see
• va a ver – he/she/it is going to see
• vamos a ver – we are going to see
• van a ver – they are going to see

You will very commonly hear Vamos a Ver as “We’ll see”. For example

Person 1 – I think it’s going to rain.
Person 2 – Vamos a ver “we’ll see”

Now, my usually disclaimer. I am not a Spanish teacher. These are just some tips that have helped me to be able to communicate with my Dominican friends. Hope they help you!