[ Home ] [ Up ]

The Future tense expresses action that happens after now.  (As you of course remember, now is the present tense.)  In English, we express the future tense by using a helping verb - will.  

For example, I will help you understand this.  I will give you a detention.   You will make a good grade.

In Latin, however, since it is inflected, the endings of the verbs change to show a change of tense or person.  This is kinda technical, but I think you get the idea.   If you need a refresher, you can go back and check the present tense page by clicking here.

To form the future tense in Latin, you must perform the following steps (just like present tense):

    1)  Find the infinitive (as you know, it ends in -re)

    2)  Remove the -re (now you have what is called the present stem).

        Choose one of the following method

     3)    a)  Add the special future tense indicator (-bi-) 

            b) add the personal verb endings (-o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt)

            c) remember that the first person singular is -bo and the 3rd plural is -bunt

        OR

            a) add the future tense verb endings which are in this chart:

As you can see, this is a little easier, but the endings are the same as the present.   Don't let the -bi- thing confuse or astound you.  To show you what a verb would look like if it was conjugated and translated properly, examine the following chart in which I have conjugated porto, portare (to carry):

To translate a verb from Latin, you are going to have to learn how to think backwards.   The ending will tell you the subject and the tense of the verb.  Make sure you identify and translate this correctly.