Talking about the future

Il futuro semplice

It. merges into one word like "parlerò" what Eng. keeps apart in three words ( I will speak).

Besides, this "futuro semplice" covers an area that Eng. tends to spread over different forms: "will speak / going to speak / speaking soon" etc.

It. uses the future tense in subordinate clauses - beginning with "se, quando, non appena, finché"... ( if, when, as soon as, as long as...) - where Eng. has a present tense. Examples: "Se pioverà non andremo al lago. Quando verranno guarderemo un film. Mi restituirà i soldi appena potrà. Ti amerò finché vivrò" ( If it rains, we won'to go to the lake. When they come, we'll watch a film. He'll give me back my money as soon as he can. I'll love you as long as I live).

Another use of this tense expresses a hypothesis. "Perché Luciano non è ancora arrivato?" "Sarà in ritardo il treno" ( Why hasn't Luciano arrived yet? - His train may be late).

Il futuro anteriore

Used to describe something that will have happened before a given time or another action in the future, this tense corresponds to the Eng. future perfect tense in most cases. "Avrò finito questo lavoro prima di sabato"; "Luigi sarà partito prima che tu arrivi" ( I'll have finished this job before Saturday; Luigi will have left before you arrive).

Il "futuro nel passato"

Here we find another important difference between the two languages. In a sentence like "He said he would do that himself" the action of doing is future with reference to saying. In It. we say "Disse che l'avrebbe fatto lui stesso", using the past conditional "avrebbe fatto" instead of the present conditional "farebbe" that is the nearest translation of "would do". Other examples:

"Sapevo che l'avresti detto" ( I knew you would say that)
"Sembrava che sarebbe piovuto di lì a poco" ( It looked as if it would rain soon / any moment)
"Credevamo che i Colombo sarebbero arrivati prima" ( We thought the Colombos would arrive earlier)

For the conditional mood see