Let's switch to the future now. Again, there are various shades of future (I will go, I will have been, I might go, I am going to go etc.), so there are various tenses that relate to the future. The simplest of these tenses is simply known as ‘future’ or ‘future indicative’ which is a fairly logical name really (the grammarians must have been having an ‘off’ day). In English, we achieve this tense by using the auxiliary verb ‘will’, or sometimes ‘shall’ (strictly speaking, in English, you are supposed to use ‘shall’ for the first person, and ‘will’ for the second and third person – unless you are trying to add emphasis, in which case you use them the opposite way round).

In Portuguese, the future tense is not used very often – they tend to use the appropriate conjugation of ‘ir’, followed by the infinitive of the verb (eg. ‘vou comer’ instead of ‘comerei’). You are more likely to come across the future indicative in writing than in speech. The true future indicative is a simple form, and is conjugated as follows:

Future indicative tense of the first conjugation regular verb: trabalhar (to work)

trabalharei

trabalharemos

trabalharás

trabalhareis

trabalhará

trabalharão

Future indicative tense of the first conjugation regular verb: pensar (to think)

pensarei

pensaremos

pensarás

pensareis

pensará

pensarão

Future indicative tense of the second conjugation regular verb: comer (to eat)

comerei

comeremos

comerás

comereis

comerá

comerão

Future indicative tense of the second conjugation regular verb: escrever (to write)

escreverei

escreveremos

escreverás

escrevereis

escreverá

escreverão

Future indicative tense of the third conjugation regular verb: garantir (to guarantee)

garantirei

garantiremos

garantirás

garantireis

garantirá

garantirão

Future indicative tense of the third conjugation regular verb: assistir (to attend)

assistirei

assistiremos

assistirás

assistireis

assistirá

assistirão

Irregular verbs and the future indicative…

Future indicative tense of the irregular first conjugation verb: estar (to be)

estarei

estaremos

estarás

estareis

estará

estarão

Future indicative tense of the irregular second conjugation verb: ser (to be)

serei

seremos

serás

sereis

será

serão

Future indicative tense of the irregular third conjugation verb: ir (to go)

irei

iremos

irás

ireis

irá

irão

A helpful hint for remembering the future indicative forms, is that they all start with the full infinitive – not just the stem of it (although not all irregular verbs do so). Be careful though not to confuse the third person plural form of the future indicative with the preterite third person plural, as they both start with the full infinitive.