1.6.1. Future

Uses of the future tense

A. The future tense in Italian (like in English) is used to express future times.

Cosa farai domani? = What will you do tomorrow?

Andrò in centro verso mezzogiorno. = I will go downtown around noon.

L’anno prossimo saremo in Italia per Natale. = Next year we will be in Italy for Christmas.

B. The future tense in Italian is also used to express probability or conjecture. There is no direct equivalent in English but the use of “must” comes close, as in the following examples:

Luigi sarà a casa, sono già le sette. = Luigi must be home, it’s already seven.

Avrà molti soldi quella famiglia. = That family must have a lot of money.

This “conjectural” or “speculative” use of the future (called futuro di probabilità) is very common in Italian, even in very everyday questions like the following:

Che ore sono? Saranno le otto. = What time is it? It must be eight.

Dov’è questa pizzeria? Sarà qui vicino. = Where is this pizzeria? It must be right around here.

Forms of the future tense (il futuro semplice)

A. All verbs in the future tense have the same set of endings:

-ò         -emo

-ai        -ete

-à         -anno

In order to correctly add a future ending to a verb in Italian, you need only to remember that –are verbs change to –er, before adding the appropriate endings.

-ere and –ire verbs do not change at all, they just eliminate the final –e, before adding the appropriate ending.

Following are model conjugations for all three types of regular verbs.

1. For irregular verbs, you only need to learn an irregular stem. The future endings remain the same: ò, -ai, -à, -emo, -ete, -anno.

Following are the most commonly used verbs which have an irregular stem*.

*Attenzione: These irregular stems are identical to the ones used in the conditional (Section 3.3)

C. Spelling changes in the futuro semplice

Verbs ending in –care and –gare (for example: nevicare and pagare) add an h in front of the vowel e in the conjugation. This is true for all verb persons.

Examples:                               

Pensi che domani nevicherà?

Do you think it will snow tomorrow?

Oggi non ho i soldi; ti pagherò domani.

I don’t have any money today, I will pay you tomorrow.

Verbs ending in –ciare, -giare and -sciare (for example cominciare, mangiare, lasciare) lose the i when they are conjugated in the future form.

Examples:       

Oggi mangeremo il risotto ai frutti di mare.

Today we will eat risotto with fish.

A che ora comincerà il concerto? Alle otto in punto!

What time will the concert start? At eight on the dot!

1. The futuro semplice is used to talk about actions that will take place in the future, especially if the actions are not planned yet or if you are not certain that they will take place. The present tense is frequently used instead of the futuro semplice to talk about actions that are likely to occur or are about to happen. E.g.,

Sabato andiamo alla partita, vieni anche tu?

On Saturday we are going to the game, are you coming?

Domani vado al mare.

Tomorrow I’m going to the beach.