The German Future 1
Future 1 is the tense we use to express things that will happen in the future.
Examples
- „Wir werden ein neues Auto kaufen.“
- „Er wird wahrscheinlich nicht kommen.“
- „Es wird morgen regnen.“
- „Ich werde nach Italien fliegen.“
- „Ich werde lieb sein, versprochen!“
Construction German Future Tense
We form the future tense with the helping verb „werden“ + Infinitive of the main verb:
| werden + Infinitive | ||
|---|---|---|
| ich | werde | lernen sehen laufen tanzen . |
| du | wirst | |
| er/sie/es | wird | |
| wir | werden | |
| ihr | werdet | |
| sie/Sie | werden | |
Word Order
It´is the regular word order with 2 verbs applies here:
Regular Main Clause:
| Position 2 | End | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Er | wird | mit dir | tanzen. |
| Position 1 | End | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Wird | er | mit dir | tanzen? |
When do we use the future tense?
There are 2 ways to speak about the future:
Future: the simple present with a time specification
In spoken German, the simple present with a time specification is used to speak about the future.
There is just one condition that needs to be fulfilled
⇒ It is sure to happen or a firm plan.
- „Wir kaufen nächsten Monat ein neues Auto.“
There has to be a time specification in the sentence or the time when the action will happen has to be universally known.
Furture: Future Tense
The real future tense is used to express an intention, prediction, or guess.
You are not sure if something will happen
Theoretically, it can always be used, but it expresses some doubt whether it will actually occur.
Comparison:
- „Ich werde nach Italien fliegen.“
(One day, whenever. The flight isn´t booked probably.)
- „Ich fliege (nächstes Jahr) nach Italien.“
(That is a firm plan. If you drop the time specification the question of the person you are talking to would may be: „Wann?“ (= „When?“) He assume that you booked the flight already, because it is an event that is going to happen for sure. You assumed that the person you are talking to knows the time already. That´s why you can drop it. If you drop it, it will 100% happen! With the time specification it will 99% happen in this example.)
More Examples
| Prediction | "Es wird morgen regnen." |
| Guess | "Er wird wahrscheinlich nicht kommen." (often with: wohl, vermutlich, wahrscheinlich) |
| Promise | "Ich werde lieb sein, versprochen!" |
| Command | "Du wirst dich sofort entschuldigen." |
| Plan | "Ich werde nach Italien fliegen." |
Further Information:
- For the construction of the German future tense you need the verb „werden„.
- The finished future, Perfect Future (Futur 2)
- Speak in the present tense: The German Present Tense
- Spek in the past: German Perfect, German Simple Past, German Past perfect
- General German word order: The Main Clause
- Some verbs get seperate, when we conjugate them: Separable Verbs
- How to conect two sentences with each other? Conjunctions and Conjunctional Adverbs
- What is a modal verb? What is special with modal verbs? German Modal Verbs
- Some verbs always require a certain case: Verbs with complements
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