FUTURE SIMPLE TENSE

The future simple tense (in Italian, Futuro semplice) is a verbal tense used to express actions or situations that will occur at a later time than the present moment.

It can be used to make predictions, express intentions, make promises, or talk about future events. It is one of the basic verb tenses in the Italian language.

WITH REGULAR VERBS

Let’s start with regular verbs in the three conjugations:

This tense’s desinences are fairly simple and not that different from the infinitive form. However, pay particular attention to 1st conjugation verbs: their desinences begin with an ‘e‘, and not with an ‘a’ like the infinitive form. So, you will say “canterò” and not “cantarò“, and so on.

However, this doesn’t happen to short verbs like dare (to give), fare (to do) and stare (to stay). Look at their conjugation below:

Pay attention to the spelling of some verbs:

• Verbs ending in -ciare and -giare lose the “i” in all the conjugation;
• Verbs ending in -care and -gare take an “h” after the -c and the -g in all the conjugation.

WITH IRREGULAR VERBS

Unfortunately, there are also some irregular verbs.

The following verbs are irregular, but follow a common rule: their future simple desinences lose their first vowel. So, for example, if we use the verb “vedere” (to see) we don’t say “io vederò”, but “io vedrò”, and so on for all the other persons.

As an example, let’s look at the conjugation of “avere” and “andare“. Remember that all the verbs in the list above follow the same rule.

Then, other irregular verbs form the future simple by losing part of their root and adding a double r, so, for example, if we use the verb “venire”, we don’t say “venirò”, but “verrò”, and so on for all the other persons:

As an example, let’s look at the verbs “venire” and “bere”:

Last but not least, there’s the king of irregular verbs: essere (to be). Its future simple conjugation doesn’t follow any rule, and it’s the following:

Now that you know how to form the future simple tense of any Italian verb, let’s look at this tense’s meanings with some real-life examples.

MEANINGS & EXAMPLES

We use the Italian futuro semplice:

1. To talk about actions that will take place in the future:

As you probably already know, Italians often use the present simple to talk about the future, especially if it’s the near future if the date is already set, and if it’s something concrete, not a dream or aspiration.

The following sentences share the same meaning, but the present simple is way more common:

Especially in everyday spoken language, using the future simple for actions you’re going to do may actually give an “annoyed” connotation. Look at the following example:

Here, the neutral answer would have been “vado io”. If this person chose to say “andrò”, it’s because he/she’s likely implying that he/she would rather not, or that he/she’s the one who always has to go grocery shopping.

Let’s look at another example. If someone writes the following message in your group chat:

And nobody answers until, hours later, the same person who drove last time replies:

…you can be 100% sure he’s not happy to be the designated driver again.

2. To make hypotheses and guesses:

3. To make promises or talk about future intentions:

4. To indicate concessions, that is, actual circumstances that, however, have no consequences on what is stated in the main sentence. In this case, you usually have “anche” or “pure” after the futuro semplice, and a “ma” in the main sentence:

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