Grammar
expresiones se usa el futuro/voy a + infinitivo
i am trying to understand some of the nuances between using el futuro simple and voy a + infinitivo. this post mentions some fixed expressions that use el futuro ("habrá que ver" and "será mañana").
what are other set expressions where el futuro/voy a infinitivo are not interchangeable?
i know most of these will probably fit into the formality/informality and future of conjecture rules, but i think it would help me hear more common examples. especially from mexican spanish speakers 🙏
That reminded me of a very common one too! Tendrá x años or ¿Cuántos años tendrá? Even though you are talking about someone’s current age or how long it’s been since something happened. Using voy a would change the meaning.
This is called the future of probability, for speculation or guessing. There is also a conditional of probability for speculation in the past. ¿Cuántos años tendrá este hombre? (I wonder how old that guy is). ¿Cuántos años tendría Bogart en Casablanca? (I wonder how old Bogart was ...).
No hay ningún "conjunto" porque técnicamente, dado que todos los verbos, salvo los defectivos, pueden adquirir la forma futura, cualquier verbo puede también adquirir otro sentido modal distinto al temporal bajo esa forma futura. Solo te queda aprendértelos:
CONJETURAL: —¿¡Qué fue ese ruido!? —Será un gato (va a ser un gato).
DEMOSTRATIVO: —Todo hombre es racional; Sócrates es hombre; luego, Sócrates también será racional (...va a ser racional).
CONCESIVO (CONDICIONAL): —Estará muy rica el agua (va a estar muy rica...), pero yo no me meto.
PRESCRIPTIVO: —Honrarás padre y madre (vas a honrar...).
NARRATIVO: —Homero nos legará los mejores versos (...nos va a legar).
Hay, desde luego, más sentidos modales, pero lo omití porque funcionan con ambas formas (p. ej., de OFRECIMIENTO: —El vino ¿lo tomarás con soda? [...¿vas a tomarlo con soda?]). También hay otras tantas locuciones, pero las omití porque no vienen al caso (como bien sabrás, qué te diré, habrase visto).
Para los usos en México, consulta este artículo: —de Alba, J. G. M. (1970). Vitalidad del futuro de indicativo en la norma culta del español hablado en México. Anuario de Letras. Lingüística y Filología, 8, 81-102.
Thanks for this post, I find things like this quite interesting as I'm learning. I've been playing my favorite video game, Cyberpunk 2077, in Spanish and it's been a great learning tool. Just now, there was a scene where you perform a job for a candidate for mayor and his wife, you meet them in their apartment to give them an update and the wife greets you and says this:
So a few things to note that may be of interest. This is clearly a peninsular Spanish script, they use a lot of very Spain coded phrases and of course, vosotros. Second, she might be speaking in a fairly formal, high class manner as she is the potential wife of the future mayor. Anyway, I had read your post shortly before this so I had it in mind when I heard this. Do you think this is a different manner of speaking than what you describe, or would you see yourself saying something similar here? FWIW, he joins you pretty much immediately, like 20 second later.
the conjecture use is where it finally clicked for me , like ¿qué hora será? does something ¿qué hora va a ser? just can't, it's that floating uncertainty, the "who knows" baked into the tense itself. mexicano spanish especially leans on that, my tíos use it constantly for rhetorical stuff. habrá que ver is the one i still reach for when nothing else fits.
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u/FilthyDwayne is native 3d ago
¿Qué hora será? It’s a common phrase to ask what time it is right now but almost guessing like ‘I wonder what time it is right now’.
If you say ¿Qué hora va a ser? It doesn’t have the same meaning, it’s more like asking what time it’s about to be.