O futuro — dois jeitos
Portuguese has two ways to talk about what's coming. The one you'll actually speak is ir + infinitive, exactly like English 'going to': Vou comer agora. The simple future tense, the futuro do presente (falarei, comerei, partirei), belongs to writing, news and formal speech. Chatting with a friend? ir + infinitive. Writing a report or a headline? The -rei forms. Brazil leans even harder on the casual option than Portugal does — and often skips the future altogether, using the plain present: Amanhã eu trabalho em casa.
ir + infinitive — the everyday future
Conjugate ir in the present and drop the bare infinitive after it. eu vou comer, você vai comer, ele/ela vai comer, nós vamos comer, vocês vão comer, eles/elas vão comer. Four working forms, as usual: vou, vai, vamos, vão. In conversation a gente vai comer replaces nós vamos comer constantly. Vou te ligar amanhã = I'll call you tomorrow — and notice the pronoun sits BEFORE the infinitive in Brazil: te ligar, never ligar-te. Vamos viajar para Salvador = We're going to travel to Salvador. With ir itself you don't stack it: say Vou ao Rio amanhã, not vou ir ao Rio. (You'll also see the tu form vais in books and in songs from the south — recognize it, but say você vai.)
Futuro do presente — the formal future
Take the WHOLE infinitive — no chopping — and add -ei, -á, -emos, -ão. falar → falarei, falará, falaremos, falarão. The endings don't care about the verb family: comer → comerei, comerá, comeremos, comerão; partir → partirei, partirá, partiremos, partirão. Watch the accents: falará and falarão carry the stress on the ending, while falaremos stresses the -re- and needs no accent. The tu form falarás exists in the books; in Brazil you'll meet it in hymns and poetry, not in the bakery.
The three irregulars
Only three verbs bend, and all three do the same thing: they shorten the stem and then take the normal endings. dizer → direi, dirá, diremos, dirão. fazer → farei, fará, faremos, farão. trazer → trarei, trará, traremos, trarão. Everything else you know behaves: ser → serei, ter → terei, ir → irei, estar → estarei, ver → verei, vir → virei.
When to choose which
Speaking: ir + infinitive, close to always. Amanhã eu vou trabalhar até tarde. Writing, news, contracts, wedding vows: the futuro do presente. O presidente falará amanhã às oito. There's one more everyday Brazilian move — the plain present doing future work when a time word makes it clear: Semana que vem eu viajo, Amanhã a gente começa. It sounds relaxed and natural. And a job the futuro do presente keeps for itself: guessing. Serão dez horas = it must be about ten o'clock — a probability, not a future time at all. Dropping falarei into a chat with a friend sounds like you swallowed a textbook.
Time markers for the future
amanhã = tomorrow. depois de amanhã = the day after tomorrow. na próxima semana or, far more Brazilian, semana que vem = next week. no próximo mês / mês que vem = next month. no ano que vem = next year — Portugal's casual para o ano is understood here but sounds imported. logo = soon, later today (até logo = see you soon). mais tarde = later, any later. daqui a + a stretch of time = in: daqui a dois dias = in two days. Put the marker wherever it sounds good: Amanhã vou viajar and Vou viajar amanhã are equally fine.
Negation and questions
Negate by parking não in front of the conjugated verb — the first one, not the infinitive: Não vou comer, Não comerei. Questions need nothing but intonation and a question mark: Você vai sair hoje? = Are you going out today? Vocês vão comer conosco? = Are you all going to eat with us? — that's conosco (with us), spelled with one n in Brazil, where Portugal writes connosco. And the little tag Brazilians hang on the end when they expect a yes: Você vai, né? = You're going, right?
