The Future

We have studied the forms of the verb "haber". This is one of two verbs that we use in Spanish to translate "have", but we must remember that is does not express possession.

That would be "tener". We use the verb "haber" when we say that someone "has done" something. In order words, it expresses an action that has been completed or accomplished. Remember that we use the forms of "haber" with the participle of another verb. That is the form which normally ends in "-do". In English we have three main forms of the verb, the present, the simple past, and the participle. This third form is what would be expressed as "-do" in Spanish. In English we would also use this form with "have" ("has done something").

Let's take a look at the forms of "haber" to review.

HABER

he
has
ha
hemos
han

Now let's practice making some sentences using the forms of "haber" to make sure that we have this pattern and the forms firmly in our minds.

Remember that the participle ends in "-ado" when we have an "A" category verb, but with "E" and "I" category verbs, the participle ends in "-ido".

Now we want to look at another way that we use the forms of "haber". Once more let's take a look at the forms of the present of "haber".

HABER

he
has
ha
hemos
han

Remember that in Spanish, the letter "h" is silent. Keeping this in mind, what we would actually hear is the following.

ABER

e
as
a
emos
an

In the Middle Ages, comañanaunities in which Latin was spoken were isolated from each other and the language evolved. Very few people knew how to read and write and the mistakes of one generation got passed onto the next generation, and then other mistakes were added, and so on. The original form of the future tense in Latin was completely lost and people "created" a new way of expressing actions that were going to happen in the future.

This has happened in English also. Often we don't say, "will do" but rather "is going to do" something. In the Middle Ages this was done with the verb "haber". However something different happened. Where forms of "haber" were used with the participle to say that someone "has done" something, they used the present forms of "haber" after the infinitive (the "R" form), to express the idea of actions that will happen in the future. In English we put "will" in front of the main verb. In Spanish, the present of "haber" came after the main verb. Notice how this would work in the following chart.

I will study
yo estudiaré

you will study
tú estudiarás

he/she will study
él/ella estudiará

we will study
nosotros estudiarémos

they will study
ellos/ellas estudiarán

This is the way that people expressed the idea of the future, "will do" something, for a long time during the Middle Ages. They wrote the future form as two words. You can see this in some old writings from that time. Let's follow that same pattern that they used to build sentences expressing actions in the future.

Notice that the "will" part follows the main verb which we use in the infinitive ("R" form). The "will" part is going to be the same, whether it follows an "A" infinitive, an "E" infinitive, or an "I" infinitive, since it is always the present form of the verb "haber".

So there we have it. The verb "haber" can be used to say "have" as in, "someone has done something", or it can be used to express future actions just like we use "will" in English. However, there is still one little detail that we have to take into account.

Remember that we said that most people couldn't read or write during the Middle Ages.

Since the letter "h" is silent, people who had never seen it written just weren't aware that it was there. They couldn't hear it. They seemed to get the idea in their head that what was following the infinitive ("R" form) in the future pattern was just what we hear, and they lost track of "haber" being a separate word in this construction. Those who did write began to write the combination of the infinitive and "haber" as a single word, perhaps something like the contraction that we use in English for "do not" ("don't"), or "is not" ("isn't"), etc. The one important thing to remember is that even though they treated the two word combination as one single word, it was the form of "have" ("haber") which was stressed and with the contraction, we have to represent this in the spelling system using an accent mark where appropriate.

This is the way that the spelling has changed over the centuries. We start writing the "will" form as two words, and in modern times we have a one word combination with the written accent mark to preserve the proper stress pattern of the pronunciation.

yo estudiar he yo estudiaré

tú estudiar has tú estudiarás

él/ella estudiar ha él/ella estudiará

nosotros estudiar hemos nosotros estudiaremos

ellos/ellas estudiar han ellos/ellas estudiarán

Notice that in the "nosotros" form we didn't have to add an accent mark. This is because the word "hemos" has two vowels, that is two syllables. The stress is already on the "e" (the next to last syllable) and so when it is added on the end of "estudiar" (or any other infinitive) the stress pattern isn't really changing, so no spelling adjustments with accent marks are needed.

Let's practice building sentences with the "will" pattern

Let's quickly review the indirect pronouns in a chart.

to me me
to you te
to him/her le (se)
to us nos
to them les (se)

We have constructed sentences using verbs which express the idea of something being transferred from one person to another. In these sentences we have had to use an indirect pronoun, placing it in front of the verb. When we have both a direct and indirect object, there is a specific sequence for the words that we have to follow. A direct object pronoun will always follow the indirect object. In other words, you could have "me lo" or "te lo", however, we can not have "lo me" or "lo te". Also, there is a change which takes place with the indirect object pronoun "le" when it is used with a direct object pronoun.

When "le" is followed by "it" (either "lo" or "la"), the word "le" will change to "se", so that we would have "se lo" or "se la".

The same thing will happen with "them". We would have "se los" or "se las". For example, if I say, "I'm giving them (the tickets) to him", I would say in Spanish:

Yo se los doy.

This change to "se" also happens with "les" ("to them"), so that anytime we say that someone is giving something "to them" we would have the combination "se lo", etc.

We have used the verb "prestar" which means "to lend". Now let's work with another verb that expresses the idea of "transfer". Let's work with "dar" which means "to give". The present of the verb "give" has an irregular form in the first part ("yo") as we saw in the example above. You may remember that often, when there is an irregular form in the present, it will be found in the "yo" form. Here is the chart of the forms of "dar" ("to give").

I give
yo doy

you give
tú das

he/she gives
él/ella da

we give
nosotros damos

they give
ellos/ellas dan

Now let's practice building some sentences with "give" using the future forms.

Another verb which we can learn which expresses the idea of the transfer of something to someone is "entregar" ("to deliver" or "to hand over"). Let's practice building some sentences using the future of "entregar". We are going to deliver the airline tickets, ("los pasajes") to someone, and we are going to do it in the airport, ("el aeropuerto").

Let's begin.

There is something that we need to remember about verbs that end in "-gar". Remember that the letter "g" is soft (pronounced like "h" in English) when followed by either "i" or "e". In the case of the verb "entregar", the "g" is followed by "a", so it has the hard pronunciation (like "g" in "go" in English). We want to keep the hard pronunciation in other forms of the verb. Remember that when we have sentences that express "feelings", we change the "a" to "e". In this case, the "g" would be soft like "h" in English, so we add in a silent "u" after the "g" to preserve the hard "g" sound. Let's review a few feeling sentences using "entregar". We'll see if you remember that proper pattern to use.

There is a small group of verbs that have an irregular form for the future ("will do"). Remember that normal verbs start with the "R" form of the verb, and add forms of "haber" minus the "h" to make a contraction. These irregular "will" forms will still use the present forms of "haber", but they use a variation of the infinitive, sometimes called the irregular future stem or root.

In general, what we see happening is the vowel before the "r" of the infinitive drops out. For example, in the case of the verb "poder", we would expect to use "poder" plus the "will" endings (present forms of "haber"). Actually we drop the "e" and use the future stem, "podr-" and add the "will endings. Here is a chart of the "will" forms of "poder" ("to be able").

I am going to be able to go to the beach ("ir a la playa") with the boys tomorrow.

One of the more interesting "will" constructions which has an irregular form, actually uses forms of the verb "haber" twice. If you remember, earlier we learned the word "hay" means "there is". The word "hay" comes from the Latin word "have" originally, rather than "is" like in English. It's like saying that "nature" has something there ("it is there"). You might remember that the "R" form of "hay" is "haber" in modern Spanish. So in this case, we are going to use the future stem of "haber" (infinitive minus the "e") plus the present form of "haber" to say "will". Since there is only one form of "there is", there is going to be only one form of "there will be". Our chart would only have a single form for each tense, not separate forms for "I", "you", "he", "she", etc.

Let's take a look at some forms that we should learn to use flexibly.

there is
hay

there is going to be there will be

va a haber habrá