Learn how to form the future tense in Spanish using a special grammatical structure
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Fernando: “Is your Spanish going to help you look better?” And I am here with JP. JP, what’s going on? |
| JP: I’m great, Fernando. What are we going to talk about in this lesson? |
| Fernando: In this lesson, you will learn about the periphrastic future. This conversation takes place in a clothing store. The conversation is between Alicia and Manuel and the speakers will be using the familiar register. |
| JP: Let’s have a listen. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Manuel: Amor, ¿sabes dónde están los vestidores? |
| Alicia: Al fondo, a la izquierda. |
| Manuel: Bueno, me voy a probar estos pantalones. |
| Alicia: Me avisas cuando estés listo para darte mi opinión. |
| Manuel: Babe, do you know where the dressing rooms are? |
| Alicia: In the back, on the left. |
| Manuel: Good, I'm going to try on these pants. |
| Alicia: Let me know when you're ready so I can give you my opinion. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Fernando: That seems to be the case. Manuel is looking for some dressing rooms, “Amor, ¿sabes dónde están los vestidores?” |
| JP: Okay. What is he calling her? That’s not her name. |
| Fernando: That’s not her name. He calls her “amor”. |
| JP: “Amor”, what does that mean? |
| Fernando: It’s a term of endearment, it literally means “love”. |
| JP: “Love! Where are the dressing rooms?” What’s the word for “a dressing room”? |
| Fernando: “Vestidor”. |
| JP: “Vestidor”, so he’s looking for the dressing rooms, so he’s going to say the plural. |
| Fernando: “Los vestidores”. |
| JP: “Los vestidores”. Now whenever you ask a where question, you are going to use “dónde” and “estar”. What does he say? |
| Fernando: “¿Dónde están los vestidores?” |
| JP: That’s the where question, he’s actually asking her, “do you know where the dressing rooms are?” |
| Fernando: “¿Sabes dónde están los vestidores?” |
| JP: “Amor, ¿sabes dónde están los vestidores?”. “Maybe you know where the dressing rooms are?” |
| Fernando: And Alicia knows where they are. “Al fondo, a la izquierda”. |
| JP: We’ve got two things here. First of all, we should break the noun into separate parts, the first one is “in the back.” |
| Fernando: “Al fondo”. |
| JP: “Al fondo” you can hear the word “fondo” which is “the deep part in the back”. And then what was the other direction? |
| Fernando: “A la izquierda”. |
| JP: “A la izquierda”. “Izquierda” of course is the word for “left.” So “a la izquierda”, “to the left.” |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: Let’s put it together. “In the back, on the left.” |
| Fernando: “Al fondo, a la izquierda”. Muy fácil. |
| JP: Now Manuel is going to tell us why he is looking for the dressing rooms. |
| Fernando: Yes. “Bueno, me voy a probar estos pantalones”. |
| JP: He’s going to try on some pants. What’s the word for “pants”? |
| Fernando: “Pantalones”. “Pantalones”. |
| JP: “Pantalones”. If you want to say “these pants”? |
| Fernando: “Estos pantalones”. |
| JP: “Estos pantalones”. Fernando, what’s the action word here? What’s the word for “try”, “to ty on”? |
| Fernando: “Probar”. |
| JP: “Probar”. “Probar” is “to try.” Now he says, “I’m off to try on these pants”. |
| Fernando: “Me voy a probar estos pantalones”. |
| JP: This is the verb “irse” which is like “I’m on my way”, “I’m going”, “I’m leaving to try on these pants”. Let’s put it together. “Well, I’m going to try on these pants.” |
| Fernando: “Bueno, me voy a probar estos pantalones”. |
| JP: He’s going to try them on, Alicia wants the final word. |
| Fernando: “Me avisas cuando estés listo para darte mi opinión”. |
| JP: Okay, we have a lot to talk about in this sentence. Let’s start with the first action, “you’ll tell me…” |
| Fernando: “Me avisas”. |
| JP: “Me avisas”, now this is the present tense of the verb “avisar”, literally this is “you are telling me” and she’s just saying as a fact that he is going to tell her. What’s he going to tell her? When he’s ready. |
| Fernando: “Cuando estés listo”. |
| JP: “Cuando estés listo”. The word for ready… |
| Fernando: “Listo”. |
| JP: “Listo” and that verb is “estar”. |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: And it’s in the present subjunctive which is not important to talk about right now, I just wanted to mention it. “You’ll tell me when you are ready.” |
| Fernando: “Me avisas cuando estés listo”. |
| JP: And now she is going to say why? |
| Fernando: “Para darte mi opinión”. |
| JP: “In-order to tell you my opinion.” |
| Fernando: Typical women. |
| JP: What’s the word for “opinion”? |
| Fernando: “Opinión”. |
| JP: “Opinión”. And then “my opinion”? |
| Fernando: “Mi opinión”. |
| JP: “Mi opinión”. How about “to give my opinion”? |
| Fernando: “Dar mi opinión”. |
| JP: If you want to say “to give my opinion to you”... |
| Fernando: “Darte mi opinión”. |
| JP: That “te” comes at the end of “dar”, “darte”. And the only thing left is that connecting word “in order to”. |
| Fernando: “Para”. |
| JP: “Para”. Let’s put the whole sentence together. “You’ll tell me when you are ready so that I can give you my opinion.” |
| Fernando: “Me avisas cuando estés listo para darte mi opinión”. |
| JP: Cool, should we look at the vocabulary? |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Fernando: “Probar”. |
| JP: “To prove”, “to test”, “to try.” |
| Fernando: “Pro-bar”, “probar”. “Listo”. |
| JP: “Ready”, “intelligent.” |
| Fernando: “Lis-to”, “listo”. “La opinión”. |
| JP: “Opinion”, “view.” |
| Fernando: “La o-pi-nión”, “la opinión”. “El vestidor”. |
| JP: “Dressing room.” |
| Fernando: “El ves-ti-dor”, “el vestidor”. “Los pantalones”. |
| JP: “Pants.” |
| Fernando: “Los pan-ta-lo-nes”, “los pantalones”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| JP: Alright Fernando, we’ve got five words to talk about here. What do you want to talk about first? |
| Fernando: Let’s start with “el vestidor”. |
| JP: “El vestidor”, “the fitting room”, “the dressing room”, the room in the back with the curtains where you can go and try on clothes that aren’t yours yet. |
| Fernando: Or with a door. |
| JP: Or with a door, that’s right. Fernando, we have “el vestidor” but in the dialogue I heard “los vestidores”, what is the difference? |
| Fernando: The amount. |
| JP: The amount, what do you mean? |
| Fernando: Well, there can be one fitting room or dressing room, “el vestidor”, or there can be many, more than one, “los vestidores”. |
| JP: Why is Manuel looking for all of them? |
| Fernando: I think it’s more a section instead of “a dressing room”. |
| JP: Okay, he’s looking for the set of dressing rooms. |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: He’s probably only going to use one when he gets there. |
| Fernando: Yes. Absolutely. |
| JP: “El vestidor”. What’s next? |
| Fernando: “Probar”. |
| JP: “Probar”, “to try on” or “try out.” “He was trying on pants”, “probar”. |
| Fernando: Next word, “los pantalones”. |
| JP: “Los pantalones”. Fernando, I put this one in the plural instead of in the singular, “el pantalón”, because “los pantalones” commonly appears in plural. |
| Fernando: That is true. However, if you want to specify for example, like “dress pants”, “pantalón de vestir”, so you use the singular. |
| JP: Aaah, okay. |
| Fernando: But yes, I mean like, you know, “are you wearing pants today?”, “¿traes puesto pantalones?” |
| JP: The answer I hope is “yes.” |
| Fernando: Yes. Unless it’s hot in which case you can wear shorts. |
| JP: Okay or skirts. Anyway, “los pantalones”, right? |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: What’s the next word? |
| Fernando: “Listo”. |
| JP: “Listo”, “ready” or “intelligent.” I think in this case we used it as “ready.” |
| Fernando: Yes, we did. |
| JP: “Me avisas cuando estés listo”, “you’ll tell me when you are ready.” And the last one? |
| Fernando: “La opinión”. |
| JP: “La opinión”. Okay, this is a cognate which means “opinion.” She says “you’ll let me know when you are ready so I can give you my opinion”, “para darte mi opinión”. |
| Fernando: Let’s move on to the grammar section. |
| JP: Okay. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| JP: In the grammar section today we are going to talk about the periphrastic futures, so “ir a hacer algo”, “to be going to do something.” |
| Fernando: Periphrastic {inaudible 07:02} that’s a lesson by itself. |
| JP: Yes, the word periphrastic just means we use a lot of words. |
| Fernando: Periphrastic, okay. |
| JP: It’s not a simple verb tense. It’s a verb tense with a bunch of words in it and the words are just like English we have a bunch of words, “to be going to”... |
| Fernando: That’s true. |
| JP: In Spanish it’s “ir a” and then an infinitive. Okay? |
| Fernando: I see. |
| JP: Actually that’s the lesson today, “ir a” and an infinitive. The infinitive is the action that’s going to be in the future. So the action is “to eat”... |
| Fernando: “Comer”. |
| JP: “Comer” means “to eat” and I hope that’s a future action, so I’m going to put that together with “ir” and “a”. Now it’s going to be “ir a comer”, “I’m going to eat.” |
| Fernando: “Voy a comer”. |
| JP: “Voy a comer”. Now you just heard Fernando use the first person singular version of “ir” which is “voy”, “I’m going”. What if you are going to eat? |
| Fernando: “Yo voy a ir a comer”. |
| JP: What if you are going to eat? You. |
| Fernando: Depends on what I’m going to eat. |
| JP: I’m trying to get you to conjugate in the second person … |
| Fernando: Aaaw! “Tú vas a comer”. |
| JP: “Tú vas a comer”, “you are going to eat.” “She’s going to eat”? |
| Fernando: “Ella va a comer”. |
| JP: “Ella va a comer”. Okay, so we have three forms of “ir”, “voy”, “vas and “va”, and it’s “voy a comer”, “vas a comer”, “va a comer”. Now of course some other people, not me but other people, might want to use a different action other than “comer”, so what’s another action we can use? |
| Fernando: “Voy a tomar”. |
| JP: “I’m going to drink.” |
| Fernando: Water! Water! |
| JP: Alright, “you are going to drink”? |
| Fernando: “Tú vas a tomar”. |
| JP: How about “he’s going to drink”? |
| Fernando: “Él va a tomar”. |
| JP: “Voy a tomar”, “vas a tomar”, “va a tomar”. Now those are just the singular forms of “ir”, we can also do it in the plural. “We are going to drink”... |
| Fernando: “Nosotros vamos a tomar”. |
| JP: “They are going to drink”... |
| Fernando: “Ellos van a tomar”. |
| JP: How about “you are all going to drink”? |
| Fernando: “Ustedes van a tomar”. |
| JP: “Ustedes van a tomar”. Okay, now we had to mention the Spanish version, the “vosotros” version. |
| Fernando: “Vosotros vais a tomar”. |
| JP: “Vosotros vais a tomar”. So the moral of the story is to use a periphrastic future to talk about an action in the future. All you had to do is use the verb “ir” and conjugate it in the present tense. “Ir” always goes with “a” and after “a” comes an infinitive like “comer” or “tomar.” |
Outro |
| JP: For now it’s time to go, so ¡hasta luego! |
| Fernando: ¡Adiós! |
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