Le futur proche

The future in French

Je suis contente de vous retrouver aujourd’hui, I am happy to meet you again today. Qu’est-ce qu’on va faire aujourd’hui ? What are we going to do today ? On va étudier le futur. Quel futur ? Le futur proche.
In the French language we have le futur proche which means close et le futur simple which means simple.
Contrary to their names,  le futur simple is not simple et le futur proche is simple (easy). So all my students like the future proche, and I’m sure you are going to like it too.
Why do we like it? It’s because it’s not complicated.

Conjugation

So how do we conjugate it ? It’s easy :

• first you start with the verb Aller in the present form (you should know it now, because we learnt it in lesson 6)
• and after you put the infinitive of the verb. Qu’est-ce que c’est l’infinitif ? l’infinitif c’est la forme standard du verbe, par exemple manger finir, partir etc.

So, there is one thing to remember it’s the verb aller in the present tense. Let’s see some examples :

Je suis au travail ( i am at work), what am I going to do today? Qu’est-ce que je vais faire aujourd’hui ?

• D’abord je vais lire mes emails et répondre.

So you can see that we have the verbe aller in the present + the infinitive of the second verb. ‘’répondre’’ is also in the future proche but I don’t repeat ‘’je vais’’. I Just say ‘’je vais lire mes emails et répondre’’ instead of ‘’et je vais répondre’’ which is correct too but a bit too long.

• Tu vas téléphoner à tes clients.
  ‘’You are going to phone your clients’’
• Mon chef va partir à l’étranger
  ‘’My boss is going to go abroad.’’
• On va préparer son voyage
  ‘’We are going to prepare his trip.’’
• Vous allez participer à une réunion
  ‘’We are going to participate in a meeting’’
• You can hear that we add a link (a liaison) between ‘’nous’’ and ‘’allons’’ (nous Z allons). And for ‘’vous allez’’ it’s the same.
• Vous allez expliquer votre projet
  ‘’You are going to explain your project’’.
• Mes collègues vont donner leur opinion.
  ‘’My colleagues are going to give their opinion.’’

Common mistakes

So you see that it’s quite easy if you know the verb ‘’to go’’ in the present.

• The main mistake you can make is forgetting to put the second verb at the infinitive form.
• The second mistake is adding a preposition after ‘’aller’’. For example: ‘’je vais repartir’’ instead of ‘’je vais partir’’; because in some languages, like in Spanish, you have a preposition after aller.

Reflexive verbs

In the last lesson we’ve learnt the reflexive verbs. Par exemple ‘’se lever’’, ‘’se laver’’ etc. If you put these verbs in the future, you need to change the ‘’se’’. Par exemple : I going to wake up, in French we say :

Je vais me réveiller

Se réveiller is the infinitive, and you need to change the ‘’se’’ into the right person:

1. je vais me réveiller
2. tu vas te réveiller
3. il va se réveiller
4. nous allons nous réveiller
5. vous allez vous réveiller
6. ils vont se réveiller

If you don’ know about the reflexive verbs, check my previous video.

The negation with the future proche

In French, the negation is composed of two words: for example NE and PAS, this is one type of negation.

When we speak, usually we pronounce ‘’pas’’ and we don’t pronounce ‘’ne’’. So, I’m going to show you both ways.
for example, ‘’I’m not going to wait’’ in French, we say, ‘’je ne vais pas attendre’’.  You can see tha ’’ne’’ is before the verb ‘’aller’’ and ‘’pas’’ is after … and after you have the main verb in the Infinitive form.

• Je ne vais pas attendre
• Je ne vais pas manger
• Je ne vais pas partir
• Je ne vais pas regarder la télévision

When we speak fast, usually we say :

• Je vais pas attendre
  (don’t write it like that, it’s just the pronunciation)

We don’t pronounce the ‘’ne’’. And even quicker we can say:

• J’ vais pas attendre
  (don’t write it like that, it’s just the pronunciation)
  Which means ‘’I’m not going to wait’’.

For the negation, we use ‘’ne … pas’’ but we can also have ‘’ ne … plus’’ which means ‘’no more’’ and ‘’ne… rien’’ which means ‘’nothing’’.

• Je ne vais plus attendre
  I am not going to wait anymore
• Je ne vais rien faire
  I am going to do nothing, or, I am not going to do anything.

So, you can see that these three negations are in the same position.

Voilà, j’espère que vous comprenez comment utiliser le future proche / I hope you understand how to use le futur proche and that it is quite simple to use.

Utilisation du futur proche

Quand l’utilise-t-on? When are you going to use it? It’s the same in French and in English. We say:
I’m going to do that = je vais faire ça
We use it for something that is close to us in the time.  For example:

• demain : tomorrow
• après-demain : the day after tomorrow
• la semaine prochaine : next week

We use it also for things that are further in time:

• L’année prochaine, je vais aller en Espagne : Next year I will go to Spain.
• Dans deux ans, je vais visiter l’Australie : In two years, I will visit Australia.

In conclusion, if you want to speak in the future you can use this fabulous time: le futur proche. You need to know some verbs at the infinitive if you want to express yourself in French. Some researchers have made a list of the most used French verbs. And I’ve created some flashcards to memorize them. Check the link in the description of the video to have access to them.

J’espère que vous avez aimé la leçon, I hope you enjoyed the lesson et I am looking forward to see you very soon, j’ai hâte de vous retrouver très bientôt et je vous souhaite une très bonne journée et à très bientôt, I wish you a very good day and see you soon !