French Simple Future

Le futur simple corresponds to the will-future tense in English. We mostly use this tense to talk about future plans or intentions in French, as well as to make predictions about what may occur in the future. We conjugate the French future tense by adding the endings -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez and -ont to the infinitive of the verb.

We learned how to conjugate the near future tense. The near future expresses that one is going to do something. The futur simple is another tense that is used to express an action that will happen. The English example sentences below use the simple future tense:

I will drink this glass of wine.

One will not predict the future.

They will tell the truth in court.

How to Conjugate Regular verbs Simple Future Tense

The simple future tense is rather easy to conjugate. In most cases, or with regular future verbs, you take the infinitive of your verb and add the following endings:

*For regular -re verbs (attendre, entendre, suspendre… etc), the -e at the end is dropped before adding the future ending.

Irregular Future Verb Stems

Several verbs in French have a unique stem for the future tense. Below are the most common verb stems that are irregular. Study the meanings of these verbs and their irregular stems in the Quizlet set of this module.

Aller → ir                               

Avoir→ aur

Être → ser

Faire → fer

Vouloir → voudr

Pouvoir → pourr

Devoir → devr

Courir → courr

Mourir → mourr

Pleuvoir → pleuvr

Falloir → faudr

Recevoir → recevr

Savoir → saur

Tenir → tiendr

Venir → viendr

Voir → verr

Examples:

J’aurai une bonne soirée. → I will have a good night out.

Tu seras content demain. → You will be happy tomorrow.

Il faudra signer le document. → It will be necessary to sign the document.

Nous recevrons de bonnes nouvelles. → We will receive some good news.

Vous tiendrez les mains de l’enfant. → You will hold the hands of the child.

Elles verront l’arc du ciel après la pluie. → They will see the rainbow after the rain.

The futur simple (simple future) describes what will happen for predictions and future projects. Form the simple future of regular -er and -ir verbs by taking the infinitive and adding the specific endings. The simple future of regular -re verbs is formed by removing the final -e from the infinitive and adding the endings above.