Future tenses in Italian

Future tense in Italian

This tense in Italian is called futuro semplice.

The Italian futuro semplice is used to refer to an action that will take place in the future.

This tense can be found with marker words such as domani (tomorrow), fra 2/10 giorni (in 2/10 days), la prossima settimana (next week), stasera (this evening).

Regular verbs form the futuro semplice by adding certain endings to the root of the verb:

1.  -are conjugation: -erò, -erai, -erà, -eremo, -erete, -eranno
2.  -ere conjugation: -erò, -erai, -erà, -eremo, -erete, -eranno
3.  -ire conjugation: -irò, -irai, -irà, -iremo, -irete, -iranno

Examples:

• Domani Francesco arriverà a Positano - Tomorrow Francesco will arrive in Positano
• Il prossimo anno partiremo per la Grecia - Next year we will leave to go to Greece

Some irregular verbs fall within two categories:

1. Verbs that lose th ending except for the letter r
   E.g. Sapere (to know) - saprò
2. Verbs that lose not only the ending but also part of the root and add rr instead
   E.g. Venire (to come) - verrò

Other irregular verbs have to be studied by heart because they do not follow any grammatical rule:

• Dare (to give) - io darò, tu darai, egli darà...
• Fare (to do/make) - io farò, tu farai, egli farà...
• Stare (to stay) - io starò, tu starai, egli starà

Auxiliary verbs and the -are, -ere, -ire conjugations

Here is a chart to help you with the conjugation of the futuro semplice:

Future perfect in Italian

The Italian future perfect is a compound tense and it is called futuro anteriore.

The futuro anteriore refers to an action that will take place in the future, usually before another action introduced by the futuro semplice.

Examples:

• Quando Riccardo arriverà a destinazione, sarà già calata la notte - When Riccardo will arrive at his destination, the night will have already fallen
• Fra tre giorni avrò finito il mio corso di portoghese - I will have finished my Portuguese course in three days

This tense can be found with marker words such as quando (when), dopo che (after), non appena (as soon as).

The futuro anteriore is formed by:

Futuro semplice of the auxiliary verb + past participle of the main verb

Some Italian verbs form the past participle in a regular way:

• Giocare (to play) - giocato
• Credere (to believe) - creduto
• Dormire (to sleep) - dormito

Other Italian verbs form the past participle in an irregular way and they have to be studied by heart:

• Dire (to say) - detto
• Perdere (to lose) - perso
• Uccidere (to kill) - ucciso

Auxiliary verbs and the -are, -ere, -ire conjugations