7 The future “going to”

For beginners, I like to use the future with “Voy a” to practice the meaning of vocab verbs with the infinitive. Voy a is used to talk about the future. It’s like in English “going to”, which means future when you say “I’m going to bring water”. In Spanish you would say something like “I go to bring water”=Voy a traer agua.

To make the future this way, you conjugate the verb to go in the present indicative, add the preposition “a”, and then you add a verb in the infinitive

In the songs there are several examples.

• La araña te va a picar (The spider is going to sting you)
• La araña te va a moder (The spider is going to bite you)
• Voy a empezar mi relato (I’m going to tart my story)

Conjugation of verb to go

In “Se va el caimán”, also, there’s a use of “vamos” to instill an action: “Vamos todos a bailar” (=let’s go everybody to dance). You can also use this verb to cheer up someone: “Vamos!!!”. To cheer up someone, use only “vamos” NOT VAMONOS. “Vámonos” means let’s depart.

The “V” sounds like B as always. When you say “Voy a” it sounds /boy a/. If you pronounce it like in English, people will still understand, but it’s worth noticing the pronunciation for listening.

The infinitive of Voy a doesn’t resemble the conjugation at all. To go is “ir”, pronounce /eer/. This happened because medievals just mixed up conjugations that came from different models in Latin, and the original verb VADERE was forgotten by those old speakers.

Here is one of my blog entries in Spanish about the expression of future:

http://bloglenguaencolombia.blogspot.com/2018/06/espanol-lengua-sin-futuro.html

Sample conversation

Organizing a party:

A: ¿Qué bebidas vas a traer (=to bring)?

B: Voy a traer _________.

A: ¿Qué ropa vas a llevar (=to wear)?

B: Voy a llevar ___________.

A: ¿Qué música vas a poner (=to play)?

B: Voy a poner ____________.

A: ¿Qué comida vas a llevar (=to bring)?

B: Voy a llevar _____________.

A: ¿Quién va a llevar ________ (=to bring)? You may add items to bring to a party: ron (=rum), cerveza (=beer), tequila, aguardiente (=ardent water), or other items

B: ________(name) va a llevar__________.

Plans for tomorrow:

A: ¿Qué vas a hacer mañana? (=What are you going to do tomorrow?)

B: Mañana yo voy a ______________, ______________ y _____________ (add three verbs in the infinitive stating your plans for tomorrow).

B2 and IAN may add: el fin de semana (=the weekend), la próxima semana (=next week), en vacaciones (=on vacation)