Making assumptions is a common thing people tend to do. Even though sometimes it isn’t right, we still do it.
We can assume things when we have seen some proof of what’s going on inside our heads. If you have ever gossiped with your friends, or even played board games like a clue, there’s no doubt that you have made an assumption.
When speaking Spanish, we can use the simple future tense to make assumptions. So, if you ever found yourself making assumptions and trying to express your ideas in Spanish but didn’t know how, you can’t miss reading this article.
Here, we will explain a few ways to make assumptions using the simple future tense.
What’s the simple future tense?
The simple future tense is a Spanish tense that helps us talk about things that haven’t happened yet. In other words, its main purpose is to help us express opinions about anything that will happen in the future. That’s not surprising, is it?
With the simple future, we can express intentions and probability. In some situations, as we said, we can use it to make assumptions or predictions.
Conjugating verbs using the simple future is easy. It does not matter if you have an “-ar”, “-er”, or “-ir” verb, we will always use the same endings.
The endings for the simple future are “-é”, “-ás”, “-á”, “-emos”, “-éis”, and “-án”. The ending will change depending on the personal pronoun we are using.
Let’s see some conjugations using “hablar”, “aprender”, and “dormir”.
| Verb conjugation | |
| Hablar | To talk |
| Yo hablaré | I will talk |
| Tú hablarás | You will talk |
| Él/Ella/Usted hablará | He/She/It/You (formal) will talk |
| Nosotros/as hablaremos | We will talk |
| Vosotros/as hablaréis | You (plural) will talk |
| Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes hablarán | They/You (plural) will talk |
| Verb conjugation | |
| Aprender | To learn |
| Yo aprenderé | I will learn |
| Tú aprenderás | You will learn |
| Él/Ella/Usted aprenderá | He/She/It/You (formal) will learn |
| Nosotros/as aprenderemos | We will learn |
| Vosotros/as aprenderéis | You (plural) will learn |
| Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes aprenderán | They/You (plural) will learn |
| Verb conjugation | |
| Dormir | To sleep |
| Yo dormiré | I will sleep |
| Tú dormirás | You will sleep |
| Él/Ella/Usted dormirá | He/She/It/You (formal) will sleep |
| Nosotros/as dormiremos | We will sleep |
| Vosotros/as dormiréis | You (plural) will sleep |
| Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes dormirán | They/You (plural) will sleep |
Just like in any other Spanish tense, we have regular and irregular verbs in the simple future. Some verbs add a /d/ when conjugating them. For example, “poner” and “salir”.
We won’t conjugate all of these verbs as we don’t want this explanation to be a lifetime long. However, you can look at the examples below to get a clearer idea of how to conjugate them.
Yo pondré los libros sobre la mesa.
I will put the books on the table.
Rafael saldrá a casa de María en unos minutos.
Rafael will leave for Maria’s house in a few minutes.
How to make predictions with the simple future
When we make predictions we can talk about events that may happen pretty soon or in the far future. Using the simple future to make predictions is one of the most common ways to express what you think will happen in Spanish.
Of course, since we are talking about things that will happen but we aren’t sure they will do, we need to use a time expression to provide a clear idea of what we say. We often use the time expression to start the sentence.
As a result, listeners will get a quick reference of what time we are talking about and will know that it will happen in the future.
Let’s see a few examples.
Dentro de cien años, las tarjetas de crédito ya no existirán.
In a hundred years, credit cards will no longer exist.
Pienso que, un día de estos, Marta conocerá a alguien especial.
I think that one of these days, Marta will meet someone special.
Todo el mundo hablará varias lenguas en el futuro.
Everyone will speak several languages in the future.
Please note that placing the time expression at the beginning isn’t mandatory. Yet, we recommend you do it as it makes communication much more comfortable.
We can also place the time expression before the verb conjugated in the future tense, or at the end of the sentence.
How to make assumptions with the simple future
When we make assumptions using the simple future, we always talk about the present time even though the verb is conjugated in the future tense. Often, these assumptions are made as a question. Therefore, we use question marks.
Please note that these questions regularly have a statement before them that will help listeners understand the context of what we say.
Here are some examples.
Mi hermano no ha llegado todavía. ¿Estará en un atasco?
My brother hasn’t arrived yet. Will he be in a traffic jam?
No encuentro mi celular. ¿Estará en la otra habitación?
I can’t find my cell phone. Will it be in the other room?
Andrés siempre llega tarde al trabajo. ¿Será que siempre se queda dormido?
Andrés is always late for work. Could it be that he always falls asleep?
In some cases, we can make assumptions without using question marks. However, when we do it, we are almost sure our assumption is correct.
Here are some other examples.
Mi hermano no ha llegado todavía, seguro estará en un atasco.
My brother hasn’t arrived yet, he’ll be stuck in traffic for sure.
No encuentro mi celular, estará en la otra habitación.
I can’t find my cell phone, it will be in the other room.
As you can realize, these examples have a similar structure to the previous ones. The only difference is that we aren’t using question marks and we place a comma before the assumption.
Simple Future Tense
In summary, conjugating verbs and using the simple future in Spanish aren’t challenging.
When we make predictions, we always need to use a time expression to set a reference. On the other hand, when making assumptions about the present time, we don’t need a time expression.
Nonetheless, the sentence structure often changes as we use question marks to express our ideas.