Le futur simple

The Simple Future Tense in French

Did you know that English has no future

tense?
Take a look at the perfect tense (compound past):
I have spoken.

You have spoken.

He has spoken.

Notice that the auxiliary verb is conjugated.

Did you know that English has no future

tense?
Now look at the so-called Future:
I will speak.

You will speak.

He will speak.

Notice that the auxiliary verb is not conjugated.

Did you know that English has no future

tense?
Strictly speaking, the word will is a modal auxiliary.
Think about the other meaning of will:
It is my will that this should happen.

Did you know that English has no future

tense?
Will is really about an intention or desire, not about events
to take place in the future.
This leads to the old linguists joke:
English: theres no future in it!

Lost tenses
You already know that French has lost some of its tenses.
For example, French no longer uses the preterite (I spoke),
and now uses the perfect (I have spoken) for both
purposes.
Like English, Latin also lost its future tense.

Protecting the future!

After the future was lost from Romance (late Latin),
speakers had to figure out a way to say things about the
future without it.
They settled on I have to do.

Future or Obligation?
In English, I have to do is about obligation. But think
about it:
I havent done it yet, so I still have to do it some time in the
future.
There is a kind of future in this as well.

En franais
In French, this expression can also be used for obligation:
Ils ont faire = They have to do.
However, it is not used very often, because most forms
have double vowels, (i.e., Jai faire), which we dont like in
French.

The difference
Remember that in Latin, word order usually doesnt matter.
However, to tell the difference between obligation and the
future, they used word order. If the verb Avoir came
before the verb, it is obligation (or pass compos), but if it
came after, it was the future.

The middle stage:

This new version of the future originally looked like this:
Je parler ai

Nous parler avons

Tu parler as

Vous parler avez

Il/Elle parler a

Ils/Elles parler ont

Notice that the last word is the present tense of avoir.

And then.
they got lazy.
They took away the space between the verb and the avoir
part, so it looks like one word (the final -e of -re verbs also
disappears).
The initial av- of the nous and vous forms was also
dropped.

And we are left with:

The final conjugation of Le futur simple looks like this:
Je parlerai

Nous parlerons

Tu parleras

Vous parlerez

Il/Elle parlera

Ils/Elles parleront

The Three Basic Paradigms:

Group I (Parler)

Group II (Finir)

Group III (Vendre)

Je parlerai
Tu parleras
Il/Elle parlera

Je finirai
Tu finiras
Il/Elle finira

Je vendrai
Tu vendras
Il/Elle vendra

Nous parlerons
Vous parlerez
Ils/Elles parleront

Nous finirons
Vous finirez
Ils/Elles finiront

Nous vendrons
Vous Vendrez
Ils/Elles vendront

Irregular (Semi-regular) Verbs

As with all tenses, some verbs are so common that they stay
irregular. Most of these are fairly predictable.
As always, the most important group of these are the -oir
verbs. In the future tense, the -oi- disappears, usually with
nothing in its place, bringing the -r together with its previous
consonant:

Irregular (Semi-regular) Verbs

Devoir = Devr-

Recevoir = Recevr-

Dcevoir = Dcevr-

Pleuvoir = Pleuvr-

Mouvoir = Mouvr-

etc.

Irregular (Semi-regular) Verbs

In a few cases, the root changes a bit so that it is easier to
pronounce:
Voir = Verr-

Faire = Fer-

Pouvoir = Pourr-

Added -d- is very common:

Vouloir = Voudr-

Falloir = Faudr-

Valoir = Vaudr-

Irregular (Semi-regular) Verbs

A few are based on the irregular present tense stem:
Venir = (pr. viens) = ViendrTenir = (pr. tiens) = TiendrAsseoir = (pr. assieds) = AssirAlso, u and v used to be the same letter, and it can change:
Avoir = Aur-

Savoir = Saur-

Suppletive (Really Irregular) Verbs

Some verbs use future stems that look nothing like the
infinitive.
These are called suppletive verbs.

Suppletive (Really Irregular) Verbs

Have you ever wondered why the past tense of BE is WAS,
and the past tense of GO is WENT? Why not *goed?
This is because there used to be two different verbs for GO:
in present tense, they were GO and WEND, and the past
tenses would have been *GOED and WENT.

Suppletive (Really Irregular) Verbs

Although we still (rarely) used WEND in the present tense (a
river wends its way through the countryside), we no longer
use GOED as a past tense.
A suppletive verb is a verb for which there were once two
verbs that meant similar things, and we now use one for
certain cases, and the other for other cases.

Suppletive (Really Irregular) Verbs

In English, that means we use GO for the present, and WENT
(from WEND) for the past - a similar case explains BE.
The same two verbs, TRE and ALLER, are also suppletive
verbs in French, and they behave the same way.

Suppletive (Really Irregular) Verbs

ALLER comes from the old Latin AMBULER (to walk) - that is
why the French co-opted the word MARCH for MARCHER
(the new version of WALK, since the old one was taken).
The present tense stem vais/vas/va/vont comes from the
Latin VANDERE (to wander).
The future stem comes from Latin ITE, and is ir-

Suppletive (Really Irregular) Verbs

TRE, along with the present forms es/est/tes, etc., come
from Latin ESSE (to be).
The future stem, however, comes from the Latin SEDERE (to
sit), and is ser-. This seems a little odd, but consider the
similar meaning between It is over there and It sits over
there. The same is true of It stands over there, from
STARE, which is also used for BE in Romance languages.

Summary of Common Irregular Verbs

tre = Ser-

Aller = Ir-

Faire = Fer-

Avoir = Aur-

Vouloir = Voudr- Falloir = Faudr-

Valoir = Vaudr-

Savoir = Saur-

Pouvoir = Pourr- Mourir = Mourr-

Venir = Viendr-

Tenir = Tiendr-

Voir = Verr-

Recevoir = Recevr-

Dcevoir = Dcevr-

Mouvoir = Mouvr-

Pleuvoir = Pleuvr-

Devoir = Devr-