Recently I wrote an article about a short cut to speaking in the future in Spanish. We call this method the “false future.”

Briefly, we form the false future by placing the conjugated present tense form of the verb “IR” followed by the letter “A” before any unconjugated verb. For example, Voy a comer (I’m going to eat); Tú vas a comer (you are going to eat); él , ella, Usted va a comer (He, she or you are going to eat); nosotros vamos a comer (We are going to eat), Ellos, ellas or ustedes van a comer (they or ‘you all” are going to eat).

The above tense is the easiest and most common way of expressing future action. By using this simple form, you can reduce the number of tenses that you have to learn. However, your should learn the ‘real’ future tense.

The future is translated as “will” or “shall.” We use the future in Spanish the same way we do in English: I will see you tomorrow or I’ll see you tomorrow. However, unlike English the word “will” is not translated into Spanish. You only need one word to imply future instead of two. For example, veré means “I will see.”

The future is probably the easiest tense to form. Start with the infinitive of the verb and add the following endings to the end of the verb: é, ás, á, emos, án. For instance, the verb IR (to go) becomes iré, irás, irá, iremos, irán. the endings are the same for ar, er and ir verbs.

Some future forms don’t start with the infinitive and have a different stem. For example, the verb decir (to say or tell) doesn’t use the infinitive form as its stem, but changes to dir. The endings, however, are the same as you use for the regular future verbs: Decir becomes diré, dirás, dirá, diremos, dirán. Other irregular verbs are: venir (vendré, etc.), salir (saldré, etc.), poner (pondré, etc.), tener (tendré, etc.), and hacer (haré, etc.).

Tiquismo of the week:
El guaro no se hizo para lavar. Lovers of Costa Rican moonshine use this phrase to justify their vice.