Irregular Future Forms

Portuguese is unusually kind to learners here. Out of the hundreds of verbs in the language, only three have irregular stems in the simple future: dizer, fazer, and trazer. Every other verb -- no matter how wildly irregular in the present, the preterite, or the subjunctive -- keeps its full infinitive before the future endings. Master these three and you will never be caught out in the simple future again. And because the conditional shares the same stems, you actually learn six paradigms for the price of three.

For the tense as a whole, see Simple Future.

The three irregular stems

Each of the three verbs drops the middle syllable of the infinitive (-ze-) and contracts to a short stem. The future endings then attach to the contracted stem exactly as they would to a regular infinitive.

Notice the pattern: the syllable containing -ze- (-zer-) collapses away, leaving behind just the first consonant of the infinitive plus -ar- or -ir-. The endings -- -ei, -ás, -á, -emos, -ão -- are the same as for any regular verb.

Full paradigms

Dizer (to say, to tell)

Fazer (to do, to make)

Trazer (to bring)

Derived verbs inherit the irregularity

Any verb built on one of these three roots uses the same contracted stem. This includes some very high-frequency verbs.

A word of warning on the last row: verbs like retrair, distrair, atrair do not belong to this family. They end in -trair, not -trazer, and they behave as regular -ir verbs in the future (atrairei, not atrarei). The rule only applies to dizer, fazer, trazer and their direct compounds.

Why these three verbs?

The contraction is not arbitrary -- it is the residue of centuries of sound change. The Latin ancestors of these verbs were dīcere (to say), facere (to do/make), and trahere (to pull/draw, later to bring in the Portuguese branch). In Old Portuguese, their futures were formed by attaching the present of haver to the infinitive -- dizer + ei, fazer + ei, trazer + ei. Over time, the middle syllable worn down and disappeared in exactly these three items, leaving direi, farei, trarei. Similar contractions happened in Spanish (diré, haré, traeré), French (dirai, ferai), and other Romance languages, though the inventory is slightly different in each.

What is striking is how little Portuguese irregularity remains. Even infamously irregular verbs keep their full infinitive in the future:

If you have been tripped up by sou, vou, tenho, venho, ponho in the present, take comfort: the simple future washes almost all of those irregularities away. Only far-, dir-, trar- stay in the list of things to memorize.

The conditional shares the same stems

The Portuguese conditional is built on the same stem as the future, with a different set of endings (-ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -iam). As a result, the three irregular stems carry over perfectly.

See Irregular Conditional Forms for the full conditional paradigms.

Mesoclisis with the three irregulars

Mesoclisis -- the placement of an object pronoun inside the verb -- applies to the simple future in exactly the same way as for regular verbs. The pronoun sits between the stem (including the contracted far-, dir-, trar-) and the ending.

The structure is: contracted stem + hyphen + clitic + hyphen + ending. Two hyphens, three parts. This is the classic dir-te-ei, far-lhe-ei, trar-nos-á pattern that marks elevated written Portuguese.

Proclisis triggers cancel mesoclisis

If a negative word, a subordinator, or certain adverbs trigger proclisis, the pronoun moves in front of the verb and mesoclisis disappears. This applies exactly the same way it does to regular future verbs.

Compare these with their mesoclitic counterparts (dir-te-ei, far-lhe-emos, trar-nos-á). The switch is purely structural: a proclisis trigger pulls the pronoun forward.

Natural examples in use

To see the three verbs working in real contexts, here are some longer sentences that a Portuguese speaker might produce in different registers.

Comparison with English

English has its own handful of irregular futures, though they are marked with different auxiliaries rather than stem changes. I will say, I will do, I will bring -- every English future uses the same auxiliary will. Portuguese gets its variety at the stem, with direi, farei, trarei standing out against a sea of regular forms built on the full infinitive.

For Spanish-literate learners, the good news is that Spanish has the same set (plus more). Spanish diré, haré, traeré correspond neatly to Portuguese direi, farei, trarei. The difference: Portuguese keeps the inventory to exactly three verbs, while Spanish adds another ten or so (querré, sabré, pondré, saldré, tendré, etc.). If you are coming from Spanish, forget those extras -- Portuguese builds their futures on the full infinitive.

Only the first three rows match across all three languages. The last four are regular in Portuguese and contracted in Spanish -- a classic trap for learners moving from one to the other.

Common Mistakes

Do not attach future endings to the full infinitive of dizer, fazer, trazer. The stems are contracted: dir-, far-, trar-.

All three verbs contract, not just fazer and dizer. The form trazerá does not exist in standard Portuguese; the correct form is trará.

Spanish has sabré, but Portuguese saber is regular in the future. Only the three verbs on this page have contracted stems.

Any negative word in the sentence -- não, nada, nunca, ninguém -- forces the pronoun in front of the verb. Mesoclisis can only appear in affirmative clauses without proclisis triggers.

The endings agree with the subject. Dirão, farão, trarão are third-person plural; dirá, fará, trará are third-person singular. The accents are not optional -- they mark mandatory stress and are required to spell the word correctly.

The simple future nós ending is always -emos regardless of the verb class: faremos, diremos, traremos, falaremos, comeremos, partiremos. Writing faramos is a conflation with the preterite (fizemos) or with other tenses.

Key takeaways

• Only three verbs have irregular simple future stems: dizer → dir-, fazer → far-, trazer → trar-.
• Every other verb in Portuguese -- however irregular elsewhere -- uses the full infinitive in the future.
• The future endings (-ei, -ás, -á, -emos, -ão) are the same as for regular verbs.
• Derived verbs (desfazer, contradizer, refazer...) inherit the contracted stem.
• The conditional shares the same stems: faria, diria, traria.
• Mesoclisis works normally with the three irregulars: dir-te-ei, far-lhe-emos, trar-vos-á. Proclisis triggers cancel it.
• Spanish has a larger set of irregular future stems; Portuguese does not. Do not transfer Spanish contractions.
• The accents on -ás, -á, -ão are mandatory.