Use of Poner in Future Tense

Another irregular future stem is found in the case of the verb "poner" ("to put"). Again, we drop the vowel "e", leaving us with the combination "nr". We add the "d" to make the pronunciation easier. Here is a chart of the verb "poner" for the future forms.

FUTURE - PONER

yo pondré           nosotros pondremos
I will put          we will put   

tú pondrás          ellos/ellas pondrán
you will put        they will put  

él/ella pondrá
he/she will put

Let's practice using poner in the future forms to mean "to put" something somewhere. We'll also include practice with direct object pronouns.

Another way we use the verb "poner" is with a "reflexive" pronoun. Remember that these are situations where someone does something to himself/herself. Let's look at the chart of reflexive pronouns.

REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS

myself           -me

yourself         -te

himself/herself  -se

ourselves        -nos

themselves       -se 

We can use the verb "poner" with a reflexive pronoun to express the idea of "putting on" clothing. In Spanish, when we are saying that someone is putting the clothing on himself/herself, we don't use possessive words like in English. Instead of saying, "I'm putting on my coat" we say "I'm putting the coat onto myself".

Another meaning which we can express with "poner" used with a reflexive pronoun and an adjective to describe a condition that someone "becomes". You might think of it as "putting" yourself in a particular "state" or "condition". We have to match the adjective to the noun that it describes. We'll use the adjective "sick" which in Spanish is "enfermo".

Another adjective we can use to describe a "condition" is "happy". In Spanish - "contento". In some cases like "happy" we just say "be" rather than "become" since we mean "begin to be".