How to speak in Future tense in German

Futur 1

Dec 12

Speaking about the future in German is not very hard, and after reading this article, you will know everything you need to talk about what will happen in the future.

The future tense in German

There are two forms of the future tense in German, just like we also use in English. This article will discover the simple future tense “Futur 1” as it is most widely used.

Future 1 and “werden”

Using future tense in German means that we need to use the auxiliary verb “werden.” It has the same function as “will” in the English “will Future.” With the help of “werden,” we can express that the sentences meaning regard the future.

1. The conjugation of “werden”

ich werde

du wirst

er wird

sie wird

es wird

wir werden

ihr werdet

sie werden

Sie werden

2. Sentence structure in Futur 1

Now, as when using Perfekt tense or modal verbs, we also need to remember in the future tense that using more than one verb will make the second and third verbs go to the end of the sentence (except for subordinate clauses). Additionally, the second and third verbs will be in the infinitive form as we already have a verb conjugated according to the referring person.

Ich werde am Dienstag um 18 Uhr ins Schwimmbad gehen.
Meine Freunde werden dieses Jahr zu Weihnachten nach Hause fahren.
Die Kinder in der Schule werden heute keine Hausaufgaben bekommen.

Future or no Future in German?

If you are using an adverb in your sentence that makes it sure for everybody that the sentence's action will happen in the future, you do not necessarily use future tense. These words are, for example, “morgen” (tomorrow), “nächstes Jahr” (next year), “im Dezember” (in December) and could express as follows:

Morgen gehe ich in den Supermarkt.
Meine Freunde fliegen nächsten Monat nach Portugal.
An Ostern fahre ich zu meinen Eltern.

As you can see in the example above, using the future tense in German is very easy. If you are still getting confused by using “werden” and “bekommen,” you can check out the article: How to properly use “bekommen” and “werden”.

Bis bald!

Steffie

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