In this lesson, you'll learn how the future tense works.
Le futur simple is a way to speak about what will happen. This is usually used for something that is less probable or a future intention that may not happen.
To get the stem for the future tense, we take the entire infinitive for most verbs. You add these endings to the verb:
| Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects | Conjugations | Subjects | Conjugations |
| je / j' | -ai | nous | -ons |
| tu | -as | vous | -ez |
| il / elle / on | -a | ils / elles | -ont |
Notice anything about those endings? They look like the verb avoir!
If we take the verb To like/love, aimer, it looks like this when we want to say that someone will like or love
| Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects | Conjugations | Subjects | Conjugations |
| j' | aimerai | nous | aimerons |
| tu | aimeras | vous | aimerez |
| il / elle / on | aimera | ils / elles | aimeront |
Tex's French Grammar lesson does an excellent job of working you through the regular futur simple tense with examples in French and English. Visit the exercises at the end to test your understanding.
Irregular verbs have an irregular stem (instead of using the infinitive) when you use the future tense:
aller: ir-
avoir: aur-
pouvoir: pourr-
vouloir: voudr-
savoir: saur-
voir: verr-
être: ser-
devoir: devr-
faire: fer-
venir: viendr-
You must memorize these stems. They are irregular and used all the time!
Tex's French Grammar lesson does an excellent job of working you through the irregular futur simple tense with examples in French and English. And, as before, there are exercises at the end to test your understanding.
Lingolia has a simplified lesson explaining the future tense.
Watch this video from French Lessons for an explanation, examples and practice activities: