Ir + Infinitivo: The Periphrastic Future

The single most useful future construction in Brazilian Portuguese is ir (conjugated in the present) followed directly by an infinitive: vou comer, vai chegar, vamos viajar. In everyday speech it has all but replaced the one-word "simple" future (comerei, chegará), so if you learn this one pattern you can talk about the future fluently from day one. This page focuses on the mechanics of the construction — how it is built and a structural quirk that trips up Spanish speakers. For when Brazilians choose this future over other options, see the periphrastic future usage page.

How it is built

Take the present-tense forms of ir and attach an infinitive. That's the whole rule. Nothing goes between the two verbs.

Notice the spelling of the third-person plural: vão, with the nasal diphthong and the tilde. It is never written vao.

There is no 'a' between the two verbs

This is the point English speakers and especially Spanish speakers must burn into memory. Spanish glues a preposition into its future: voy *a comer, va **a llegar. Brazilian Portuguese does *not. The two verbs sit directly next to each other.

If you carry the Spanish a over, you produce sentences that sound foreign and, worse, can collide with a completely different construction (more on that below). There is no logical reason Portuguese dropped the preposition while Spanish kept it — historically both languages once allowed variation, and Portuguese simply settled on the bare infinitive. You just have to internalize: vou + verb, nothing in between.

Do not confuse it with 'ir + a/para + a place'

There is one situation where ir does take a preposition: when you're going to a place. Then ir is the main verb meaning "to go (somewhere)," and it links to a location with a (often contracted to ao/à) or para (colloquially pro/pra).

In the first sentence, ao mercado is the destination (movement), and comprar pão is the purpose. In the second, there is no destination at all — vou comprar is purely the future tense. The difference is whether a place follows: a place needs ao/à/pro/pra; an action that is simply the future takes the bare infinitive.

Look at that last example carefully: vai *à praia (place, with the contraction à) but *vai relaxar (future, no preposition). The same little word vai does both jobs in one breath — the presence or absence of a place tells you which.

It covers near and distant future alike

A common misconception is that vou comer only means the immediate future, the way English "going to" sometimes feels more imminent than "will." In Brazilian Portuguese the periphrastic future is the default for essentially all future reference, near or far. You can plan tomorrow, next year, or your retirement with vou.

The one-word simple future (morarei, aprenderei) still exists, but in speech it sounds formal, written, or even slightly pompous. Brazilians reserve it for newspapers, formal writing, and a few set expressions. For the full comparison and when each is appropriate, see the colloquial replacement of the simple future.

A note on negation and adverbs

Negation goes before vou/vai/vão, and short adverbs like já, ainda, and nunca typically sit between the negative and the verb phrase or right before it — never wedged inside vou comer.

The two-verb block vou comer / vai decidir stays welded together; you don't split it.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• ir (present) + infinitive with nothing in between is the everyday future: vou comer, vai chegar, vão ligar.
• Never insert the Spanish-style a. The preposition only appears when ir points to a place (vou ao mercado, vou pra praia).
• A gente vai (singular), not a gente vamos; and the plural is vão with a tilde.
• It works for near and far future alike, and it has effectively replaced the simple future in spoken Brazilian Portuguese.