Futur Proche: How to Talk About the Future in French

You're chatting with a French friend about your weekend, and you want to say "I'm going to visit my grandmother" — but your brain reaches for some French future tense you half-remember from a textbook, all those endings, and the sentence stalls before it even starts. Good news: the tense French speakers actually reach for in this exact moment isn't the one loaded with endings. It's arguably the easiest tense in the entire language.

That easiest tense is called the futur proche (few-tewr prosh) — literally "near future" — and it's how French speakers talk about anything from what they're doing in five minutes to what they're doing next year. If you've been putting off the future tense because conjugation tables looked intimidating, this is the shortcut: you already have almost everything you need, because it reuses a verb you likely learned in your first week of French.

The futur proche is built from two pieces you already know: the present tense of aller (to go) plus an infinitive, with nothing in between. Je vais manger (zhuh vay mahn-zhay) is literally "I am going to eat" — the exact same structure English uses for the same idea, which makes this one of the rare grammar points where the two languages actually think alike. Aller conjugates like this in the present tense: je vais, tu vas, il/elle va, nous allons, vous allez, ils/elles vont. Pick the right form of aller for your subject, drop in any infinitive right after it, and you have a complete future-tense sentence — no new endings to memorize at all.

French also has a second future tense, the futur simple, built by adding endings directly onto the infinitive (je mangerai, tu mangeras, il mangera...) — that's the one most textbooks lead with, and it still matters for formal writing, promises, and predictions about the more distant future. But in everyday spoken French, the futur proche is what people actually reach for, constantly, the same way English speakers say "I'm going to call her" far more often than "I shall call her." The single most common mistake learners make is conjugating both verbs — saying something like je vais je mange instead of je vais manger. Only aller gets conjugated; the second verb always stays untouched, in its plain infinitive form.

A handful of time expressions pair naturally with the futur proche and are worth learning alongside it. Tout de suite (too duh sweet) — right now, immediately. Bientôt (byan-toh) — soon. Ce soir (suh swahr) — tonight. Demain (duh-mehn) — tomorrow. Ce week-end (suh week-end) — this weekend. La semaine prochaine (lah suh-mehn pro-shen) — next week. Dans deux jours (dahn duh zhoor) — in two days. Après (ah-preh) — after, afterward.

Negating the futur proche follows the normal negation pattern, but ne...pas wraps around aller, not the infinitive: je ne vais pas manger (I'm not going to eat), never je vais ne pas manger. This tense shows up everywhere in daily French — weather forecasts (il va pleuvoir, it's going to rain), a parent warning a kid (tu vas tomber, you're going to fall), friends making plans (on va au cinéma ce soir, we're going to the movies tonight) — all reach for the futur proche instead of the more formal futur simple. Getting comfortable with it will make your spoken French sound natural far sooner than drilling futur simple endings first would.

Picture texting a French friend about the weekend. They ask: "Qu'est-ce que tu vas faire samedi ?" (What are you going to do Saturday?) — and you reply: "Je vais aller au marché le matin, et l'après-midi je vais retrouver des amis au parc." (I'm going to go to the market in the morning, and in the afternoon I'm going to meet friends at the park.) Notice both halves use the exact same aller-plus-infinitive pattern, even when aller itself is the infinitive being used — je vais aller, "I'm going to go."

Try it yourself. Conjugate aller for nous, then complete the sentence: Nous ___ (aller) manger au restaurant ce soir. Fix the mistake in this sentence: Elle va elle regarde un film. Translate to French using the futur proche: "I am going to travel to Paris next year." Translate to French using the futur proche, in the negative: "They are not going to come tomorrow." Which of these correctly negates a futur proche sentence — je ne vais pas partir, or je vais ne pas partir? Complete: Il ___ (pleuvoir) demain, d'après la météo.

Answers: Nous allons manger au restaurant ce soir. The fix is Elle va regarder un film — only aller is conjugated, the second verb stays a plain infinitive. Je vais voyager à Paris l'année prochaine. Ils ne vont pas venir demain. Je ne vais pas partir is correct — ne...pas wraps around the conjugated aller, not the infinitive. Il va pleuvoir demain, d'après la météo.

The futur proche is aller in the present tense plus an untouched infinitive — nothing more. It's the future tense French speakers actually use most in daily conversation, so it's worth learning before the futur simple, not after it. And the biggest trap to avoid is conjugating the second verb — it always stays in its infinitive form. Ready to put it to use? Head over to Verbs to see the full present-tense conjugation of aller, or try a round of Exercises to start building your own futur proche sentences.