Boa tarde, leitores! Good afternood, readers! Como estão? How are you?

It is janeiro (january), which means most of us are still hopeful and excited about our resoluções de ano novo (New Year’s resolution). Whether you plan it is to lose weight, work less, travel more or study more Portuguese, all of these decisions involve talking about the future. There are many ways to use the future tense in Portuguese, but today we are going to cover a very common structure that we Brazilians like to employ: the future with the verb ir (go). It works much like the future using ‘going to’ in English in that it indicates future actions, events, plans and intentions. Take a look at how it is formed: 

“I am going to stay here”

Therefore, we have the verb ‘ir’ in the present as an auxiliary before the main verb in the infinitive. This construction is similar to the future simple in Portuguese, which doesn’t require any auxiliary verb. Look: 

“I am going to stay here”
Future with the verb ‘ir’/ Simple future

Both sentences mean I am going to stay here, so you can say it both ways. But the difference is that the future with the verb ir is more colloquial and used more frequently in our daily speech. So if you form a sentence with ficarei instead of vou passar, you will sound a lot more formal. So before we check out some examples, let’s see the verb conjugation of the verb ‘ir’ in the present:

VERBO IR

eu vou (I go)

você vai (you go)

ele/ela vai (he/she goes)

nós vamos (we go)

vocês vão (you go)

eles/elas vão (they go)

• Ele vai trazer gelo pra festa – He is going to bring ice to the party
• Você não vai fazer nada? – Aren’t you going to do anything?
• Vou passar aí para te buscar em 5 minutos – I am going to pick you up in five minutes
• Meus pais vão passar as férias em Fortaleza esse ano – My parents are going to spend their vacation in Fortaleza this year
• Onde nós vamos jantar hoje? – Where are we going to have dinner tonight?
• Agora não posso, vou buscar meu carro na oficina – I can’t right now, I am going to get my car at the shop
• Será que vai chover hoje? – Is it going to rain today?
• Se você continuar comendo tanto, vai passar mal – If you keep eating so much, you’re going to be sick
• Meu voo atrasou, não vou chegar a tempo para a reunião – My flight was late, I am not going to be on time for the meeting
• Quando seus pais vão se aposentar? – When are your parents going to retire?
• Esse ano eu vou trabalhar menos – This year I am going to work less
• Com o dinheiro que eles pouparam, eles vão comprar um carro – With the money they saved, they are going to buy a car
• Essa garota vai ter um futuro brilhante – This girl is going to have a brilliant future
• Já sabe em quem você vai votar esse ano? – Do you know who you’re going to vote for this year?
• Não vamos sair essa noite – We’re not going out tonight

*Note: we don’t normally use the future with the verb ‘ir’ followed by the verb ‘ir’ – as in: eu vou ir (I am going to go) because it doesn’t sound very good.

Here are some previous posts about how to use the future and how to make New Year’s resolutions in Portuguese:

https://blogs.transparent.com/portuguese/conditional-sentences-in-portuguese-possible-future/

https://blogs.transparent.com/portuguese/portuguese-verb-conjugation-future-tense/

https://blogs.transparent.com/portuguese/new-years-resolutions/

https://blogs.transparent.com/portuguese/new-years-resolutions-in-portuguese/

Tenham uma boa semana! Have a good week!