French Future Tense

The future is, in my opinion, one of the simplest French tenses. There is only one set of endings for all verbs, and most of them - even many which are irregular in the present tense - use their infinitive as the root. There are only about two dozen stem-changing or irregular verbs which have irregular future stems but take the same endings:*

acheter > achèter-   similar verbs: achever, amener, emmener, lever, promener

acquérir > acquerr-   similar verbs: conquérir, s'enquérir

appeler > appeller-   similar verbs: épeler, jeter, projeter, rappeler

aller > ir-

avoir > aur-

devoir > devr-

envoyer > enverr-

essayer > essaier-   similar verbs: employer, ennuyer, nettoyer, payer

être > ser-

faire > fer-

falloir > faudr-

pleuvoir > pleuvr-

pouvoir > pourr-

savoir > saur-

valoir > vaudr-

venir > viendr-   similar verbs: devenir, parvenir, revenir

voir > verr-   similar verb: revoir

vouloir > voudr-

*Notes:

   1. The future stem always ends in R.
   2. The exact same verbs are irregular in the conditional and use the same stems.

Test on the French future tense

French future conjugations
To conjugate an -ER or -IR verb in the future tense, add the appropriate endings to the infinitive. For -RE verbs, remove the final -e and then add the future endings. For irregular verbs, add the endings to the irregular future stem. For example, here are the future conjugations for the regular verbs parler (to speak), finir (to finish), and vendre (to sell) and the irregular verb aller (to go):
Pronoun	Future ending	parler > parler-	finir > finir-	vendre > vendr-	aller > ir-
je	-ai	parlerai	finirai	vendrai	irai
tu	-as	parleras	finiras	vendras	iras
il	-a	parlera	finira	vendra	ira
nous	-ons	parlerons	finirons	vendrons	irons
vous	-ez	parlerez	finirez	vendrez	irez
ils	-ont	parleront	finiront	vendront	iront

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