Talking about the weekend is where A2 learners first need to handle the future — and Brazilian Portuguese has two very different tools for it. The everyday one is the periphrastic future (vou + infinitive), which is easy. The tricky one hides inside conditions like "if it's sunny," where Portuguese reaches for the future subjunctive, a tense English doesn't have. This short monologue puts both side by side, the way a real person would actually say them.
The text
A friend is telling you about the upcoming weekend:
Esse fim de semana eu vou viajar pra praia.
This weekend I'm going to travel to the beach.
Sábado a gente vai sair de manhã cedo.
Saturday we're going to leave early in the morning.
Se fizer sol, vou nadar o dia inteiro.
If it's sunny, I'll swim all day long.
Se chover, a gente vai ficar no hotel mesmo.
If it rains, we'll just stay at the hotel.
À noite vamos comer um peixe no restaurante da orla.
At night we're going to eat fish at a restaurant on the seafront.
Domingo eu volto.
Sunday I come back.
Six lines, three different ways of pointing at the future. Let's unpack them.
"Vou + infinitive" — the everyday future
By far the most common future in spoken Brazilian Portuguese is ir (to go) in the present + an infinitive: vou viajar, vai sair, vamos comer. It works exactly like English "going to": the present-tense ir carries the person and time, and the infinitive carries the action.
Eu vou viajar pra praia.
I'm going to travel to the beach.
A gente vai sair cedo.
We're going to leave early.
Vamos comer peixe.
We're going to eat fish.
Here is the whole present tense of ir that powers it: eu *vou, você/ele vai, nós vamos, vocês/eles vão*. Notice the form never doubles up: you say vou viajar, never vou ir viajar; and to express "I'm going to go" Brazilians simply say vou (the destination is enough). This periphrastic future has almost completely replaced the "true" simple future (viajarei, sairei) in speech — that synthetic form survives mainly in writing and formal registers.
"A gente" — the colloquial "we"
The friend says a gente vai sair, not nós vamos sair. A gente literally means "the people/folks" but in modern Brazilian speech it simply means we. Crucially, it takes third-person singular agreement — the same verb form as ele/ela:
A gente vai ficar no hotel.
We're going to stay at the hotel. (a gente + vai, 3rd singular)
Nós vamos ficar no hotel.
We're going to stay at the hotel. (nós + vamos, more formal)
Both mean "we." A gente is the default in casual speech; nós is slightly more formal or emphatic. The trap for learners is agreement: because a gente feels plural in meaning, beginners say a gente vamos — but the verb must be singular, a gente vai. Think of it as "the gang is going," not "the gang are going."
"Se fizer sol" — the future subjunctive
This is the line that catches everyone. Se fizer sol means "if it's (going to be) sunny" — and fizer is the future subjunctive of fazer. English has no such tense; we just use the present ("if it's sunny," "if it rains"). Portuguese, however, marks an open future condition with this special form.
Se fizer sol, vou nadar.
If it's sunny, I'll swim.
Se chover, a gente fica em casa.
If it rains, we'll stay home.
Quando você chegar, me liga.
When you arrive, call me.
The logic: the future subjunctive marks a condition or time that hasn't happened yet but realistically might. After se (if), quando (when), assim que (as soon as), and enquanto (while) — whenever you're pointing at an as-yet-unrealized future event — Portuguese switches into this mood. English flattens all of this into the present tense, which is exactly why learners forget to switch.
How it's formed (the friendly part): take the eles form of the preterite, drop -ram, and add the future-subjunctive endings. Because it's built from the preterite stem, irregular verbs stay irregular and match their preterite, so you get them for free:
| Verb | Eles (preterite) | Future subjunctive (ele/se...) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| fazer | fizeram | fizer | if it does (sol = if it's sunny) |
| chover | choveram | chover | if it rains |
| chegar | chegaram | chegar | when (you) arrive |
| ser | foram | for | if it is |
| ter | tiveram | tiver | if (you) have |
Notice the pairing: the se-clause uses the future subjunctive (fizer, chover), and the main clause uses an ordinary future (vou nadar) or even the simple present. You never put the future subjunctive in the main clause.
"Eu volto" — present tense for a scheduled future
The last line, Domingo eu volto (Sunday I come back), uses the plain present indicative to talk about the future. This works exactly like English "Sunday I'm back" or "the train leaves at six": when a future event is fixed, scheduled, or on the calendar, both languages happily use the present.
Domingo eu volto.
Sunday I'm coming back. (scheduled future, present tense)
O voo sai às sete da manhã.
The flight leaves at seven a.m.
So in these six lines you've seen three futures: vou + infinitive (intention/plan), the future subjunctive (open condition after se/quando), and the simple present (a fixed schedule). A fluent speaker mixes all three without thinking.
Vocabulary and expressions
- fim de semana — weekend (note esse fim de semana = this coming weekend).
- pra — colloquial contraction of para (to/for); ubiquitous in speech and casual writing.
- de manhã cedo — early in the morning; de manhã / de tarde / de noite = in the morning/afternoon/at night.
- o dia inteiro — the whole day; a noite inteira = the whole night.
- a orla — the seafront/promenade along a beach.
- mesmo here means "just / anyway": ficar no hotel mesmo = just stay at the hotel.
Cultural note
The Brazilian fim de semana often stretches to include Friday night and, around holidays, a feriadão (a long weekend when a midweek holiday gets bridged to the weekend). Beach trips are planned around the forecast precisely because of lines like se fizer sol — the weather genuinely dictates the plan, which is why this conditional shows up so naturally in everyday talk.
Common Mistakes
❌ A gente vamos sair cedo.
Incorrect — 'a gente' takes singular agreement.
✅ A gente vai sair cedo.
We're going to leave early.
❌ Se faz sol, vou nadar.
Incorrect — present indicative instead of future subjunctive after 'se' (open future).
✅ Se fizer sol, vou nadar.
If it's sunny, I'll swim.
❌ Quando você chega, me liga.
Incorrect — present after 'quando' for a future event.
✅ Quando você chegar, me liga.
When you arrive, call me.
❌ Eu vou ir viajar pra praia.
Incorrect — don't double up 'vou ir'.
✅ Eu vou viajar pra praia.
I'm going to travel to the beach.
❌ Se fizer sol, eu fizer nadar.
Incorrect — future subjunctive only goes in the 'se' clause, not the main clause.
✅ Se fizer sol, eu vou nadar.
If it's sunny, I'll swim.
Key takeaways
- vou/vai/vamos + infinitive is the everyday spoken future.
- a gente = "we" but conjugates like ele/ela (3rd singular): a gente vai.
- After se / quando / assim que pointing to an unrealized future, use the future subjunctive (se fizer, quando chegar) — English just uses the present, so this is easy to forget.
- The main clause keeps an ordinary future (vou nadar); never the future subjunctive.
- The plain present can express a scheduled future: Domingo eu volto.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- The Periphrastic Future (vou + infinitive)A1 — How Brazilians actually talk about the future: ir in the present plus an infinitive.
- Futuro do Subjuntivo: UsageA2 — When to use the future subjunctive in Brazilian Portuguese — the obligatory form after 'quando', 'se', 'enquanto', 'assim que' and other time conjunctions pointing to the future.
- A Gente in Impersonal/Generic UseA2 — How a gente works as a generic 'one/people' pronoun (distinct from its 'we' meaning), why the verb stays third-person singular, and how context tells the two apart.
- Present Indicative for Future EventsA2 — How Brazilian Portuguese uses the simple present for scheduled and near-future events — like English 'the train leaves at five' — and how this choice differs from vou + infinitivo and the simple future.
- Colloquial Avoidance of Simple FutureA2 — Why the one-word future (farei, irei) sounds bookish in speech, and what Brazilians actually say instead.
- Adverbs of TimeA1 — The core Brazilian Portuguese time adverbs — hoje, ontem, amanhã, agora, já, ainda, sempre, nunca, jamais — including the tricky já (already/right now) and ainda (still/yet).