Welcome to the second in Hablarama’s series on dumb and not-so-dumb questions about the Spanish language. While we always tell you not to try to translate directly from one language to another, we know that all you guys have your favourite English expressions that you’re just dying to say in Spanish. And here’s one particular question which we are asked a lot by our students:
How do you say WILL in Spanish?
Sorry guys, Spanish has no word for ‘will’.
Don’t sulk. The reason Spanish has no word for ‘will‘ is that those crafty Spanish speakers form the future tense in a different way.
Check out this comparison of the Spanish and English future tenses. We’ll take the verb ‘visitar‘ as an example:
| Visitar | Visit |
|---|---|
| Yo visitaré | I will visit |
| Tú visitarás | You will visit |
| Él / Ella visitará | He/She/It will visit |
| Nosotros visitaremos | We will visit |
| Vosotros visitaréis | You will visit |
| Ellos visitarán | They will visit |
So you see, in English we use ‘will’ to indicate that we are talking about the future. However, in Spanish it’s the VERB ENDINGS that you need to pay attention to.
*We haven’t included the endings for the formal ‘usted’ and ‘ustedes’ forms, but trust us, the pattern is the same!
Let’s see that again…
Here’s another verb, ‘contactar’ (contact), just in case we haven’t convinced you..
| Contactar | Contact |
|---|---|
| Yo contactaré | I will contact |
| Tú contactarás | You will contact |
| Él / Ella contactará | He/She/It will contact |
| Nosotros contactaremos | We will contact |
| Vosotros contactaréis | You will contact |
| Ellos contactarán | They will contact |
Now, some Spanish verbs are irregular in the future tense and have slightly different endings. The differences are small though, as we explain in our full class on the Spanish future tense.
The Spanish you already know
If you are wondering why those Spanish verbs look so similar to the English one, it’s because they are both derived from Latin. Although English isn’t a Latin language, it does have thousands of words which were originally found in the language of ancient Rome. Many of these are incredibly similar to Spanish. Check out our class on the Spanish you already know for a whole host of Spanish words which you should instantly recognise.
Spanish verbs
Spanish verbs are divided into three groups, according to the ending of the infinitive form: IR, ER and AR (like the examples in this class). For a thorough (but quick!) overview visit our class on Spanish verb groups.
Some more examples
We have a whole class on the Spanish future tense in our Spanish Grammar section. In that class we’ll show you how to conjugate the three main Spanish verb groups in the future. We’ll also give you loads of examples. But let’s just say now that the future tense is simpler in Spanish than in English. Here’s a little taster:
- No vendremos esta noche. – We won’t come tonight.
- ¿Vendrás mañana? – Will you come tomorrow?
- Te llamaré. – I’ll call you.*
*Dude, don’t say this in either language unless you really mean it 🙂
What about ‘do’?
Now that we’ve dealt with ‘will’, allow us to set your mind at rest on all things related to ‘do’ in Spanish.
