The near future tense, also known as the immediate future or ‘ir + a + infinitive’, is used to describe actions which are going to happen. It’s used in a very similar way to how we use the construction ‘going to + infinitive’ in English to talk about future actions/plans.
Want to tell people what you’re “going to do” this weekend, “going to eat” this afternoon, “going to watch” on tv tonight? In Spanish, this is what we call the near future. In order to form this verb tense, we need to get familiar with the verb IR. This verb (like the verb SER we’ve learned) is what we call an irregular verb in Spanish in that it does not follow the traditional conjugation rules that we will learn in our upcoming lesson about -AR verbs. Let’s check out its conjugation below:
IR = To go
| Yo voy = I go | Nosotros(as) vamos = We go |
| Tú vas = You (informal) go | Vosotros(as) vais = You all go |
| Él va = He goes Ella va = She goes Usted va = You (formal) go | Ellos van = They go Ellas van = They go Ustedes van = Y’all go |
| FUN FACT! With any form, you can eliminate the subject pronoun from the sentence when it is clear who the subject is! For example: ( |
Now that we know how to use the verb IR, we’re going to add another layer in order to create the near future tense. This near future tense has three components:
IR + A + INFINITIVE
Do you recall from our previous SER module that an infinitive is the unchanged form of the verb? That means we do not have to conjugate that verb at all. For example: voy a comer. See how comer has been left alone?
Let’s look at a few examples:
Yo voy a bailar. I am going to dance.
¿Tú vas a salir? Are you going to leave?
Él va a correr. He is going to run.
Nosotros vamos a celebrar. We are going to celebrate.
Vosotros vais a trabajar. You all are going to work.
Ellas van a hablar. They are going to talk.