Future Tense

Table of contents

1. Conceptual Overview
2. 1st and 2nd Conjugations
3. 3rd, 4th, and 3rd -iō Conjugations
   1. 3rd Conjugation
   2. 4th and 3rd -iō Conjugations
4. esse
5. Summary
   1. Future Tense - Active Voice
   2. Future Tense - Passive Voice

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Conceptual Overview

The future tense indicates that the action of a verb has yet to take place, but it’s certain that it will happen. In English, the future tense shows up with the auxiliary verbs “will” or “shall”. Take a look at some examples in English, with the Latin equivalent of the verb in parentheses:

• She will do (faciet) her homework tonight.
• They shall give (dabunt) free pizza to the students next week.
• The teacher will write (scrībet) the exam tomorrow.
• The songs shall be sung (canentur) by the choir next weekend.

So, the future tense can be translated with the auxiliary verbs “will” or “shall”: for example, “he will write” or “it will be written.”

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1st and 2nd Conjugations

Like the present tense, the future tense has different rules for formation depending on the conjugation of the verb in question. The 1st and 2nd conjugation operate on the same rules: you get the present stem (by going to the 2nd principal part and chopping off the -re), and then you add the same set of endings:

Active

Passive (note the vowel shift in the 2nd singular)

Note that these endings are composed of the letter -b, a vowel (ō, i, or u), and the personal endings that are familiar from the imperfect tense and present tense (-ō, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt for active; -r, -ris, -tur, -mur, -minī, -ntur for passive).

So, for example, the 3rd person plural future active indicative of amō, *amāre, amāvī, amātus, “to love”, is amābunt, “they will love.” The third person singular future passive indicative of moneō, monēre, monuī, monitus, “to warn”, is monēbitur, “he/she/it will be warned.”

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3rd, 4th, and 3rd -iō Conjugations

The formation of the future tense in the 3rd, 4th, and 3rd -iō conjugations follow different rules. As in the present tense, these conjugations use vowel shifts to indicate the future tense. In addition, the set of endings that you can use to indicate future tense is different for 3rd, 4th, and 3rd -iō verbs than the ones you can use for 1st and 2nd conjugation verbs.

A quick mnemonic that can help you remember the differences in 1st/2nd conjugations and 3rd/4th/3rd iō conjugations in the future tense is:

-bō, -bi, -bu in 1 and 2; a and e in 4 and 3

The -bō, -bi, -bu part summarizes the future endings in the 1st and 2nd conjugation. Let’s see what the “a and e in 4 and 3” part means.

3rd Conjugation

To form the future tense of third conjugation verbs, you first find the present stem (which, again, means that you go to the 2nd principal part and chop off the -re). For example, the present stem of regō, regere, rēxī, rectus, “to rule”, is rege-.

In the future tense, that final -e either remains an -e or lengthens to a long -ē in all persons and numbers except 1st sg., in which it shifts to an -a. Then, you tack on the personal ending that you need (using an -m rather than -ō for the 1st sg. active). Another way to look at it is that the stem’s -e disappears entirely and then the following endings get attached to what is left of the stem:

Thus:

Note how similar these forms look to their present tense equivalents; often, one letter makes all the difference. For example:

• regit, “she rules” (present tense)
• reget, “she will rule” (future tense)
• reguntur, “they are ruled” (present tense)
• regentur, “they will be ruled” (future tense)

Make sure to be careful about how the form is spelled!

4th and 3rd -iō Conjugations

In the 4th conjugation, the future tense retains the -i in the stem before adding the appropriate -a or -e and the personal endings. Let’s take audiō, audīre, audīvī, audītus, “to hear”, as an example:

Active

Passive

The third -iō conjugation, like the fourth conjugation, uses -i- as a stem vowel before adding the appropriate -a or -e and personal endings. So, with capiō, capere, cēpī, captus, “to take, seize”, we chop the -re off capere (= cape-) and then change the final -e to -i (= capi-) before adding the endings:

Active

Passive

Again, one letter makes the difference between present and future. For example:

• audit, “she hears” (present tense)
• audiet, “she will hear” (future tense)
• capimus, “we take” (present tense)
• capiēmus, “we will take” (future tense)
• audiuntur, “they are heard” (present tense)
• audientur, “they will be heard” (fuure tense)

Analyze the word carefully in terms of spelling to determine what tense it is!

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esse

The future tense of sum, esse, fuī, futūrus - “to be” is irregular, just like its present system counterparts in the present tense and imperfect tense.

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Summary

You must be aware of a verb’s conjugation when dealing with the future tense, because of the differences in endings used (bo bi bu in 1 and 2, a and e in 4 and 3). For comparison, here are charts that have future tense forms across all five conjugations:

Future Tense - Active Voice

Future Tense - Passive Voice

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