Alongside the invariable o să future, Romanian has a close cousin: the am să future. It means the same thing — a plain future — but it is built differently. Here the auxiliary agrees with the subject: am să plec, ai să vezi, avem să facem. If o să is the future that froze, am să is the future that kept moving. Both are colloquial; learning to recognise and use both is a B1-level milestone.
How it is built
The formula is:
[present of a avea, person by person] + să + [verb in the conjunctiv prezent]
The auxiliary comes from a avea (to have), reduced to its present-tense forms. Unlike the rigid o of the o-să future, this auxiliary inflects fully for person and number.
| Person | Auxiliary (from a avea) | am-să future of a pleca |
|---|---|---|
| eu | am | am să plec |
| tu | ai | ai să pleci |
| el / ea | are (often → o) | are să plece / o să plece |
| noi | avem | avem să plecăm |
| voi | aveți | aveți să plecați |
| ei / ele | au (often → o) | au să plece / o să plece |
As with o să, the verb after să is in the conjunctiv, so the third person uses its special conjunctive form: plece, not the indicative pleacă.
Mâine am să plec devreme la muncă.
Tomorrow I'll leave for work early.
Ai să vezi că am dreptate.
You'll see that I'm right.
The auxiliary inflects — that is the whole point
The defining feature of this future is that the auxiliary carries person agreement. Compare the two futures side by side:
| Person | o-să future (invariable o) | am-să future (inflected aux) |
|---|---|---|
| eu | o să spun | am să spun |
| tu | o să spui | ai să spui |
| el / ea | o să spună | are să spună |
| noi | o să spunem | avem să spunem |
| voi | o să spuneți | aveți să spuneți |
| ei / ele | o să spună | au să spună |
In the left column, o never budges. In the right column, the auxiliary marches through am, ai, are, avem, aveți, au. The verb after să is identical in both columns — only the front of the construction differs.
Why the two exist: a shared ancestor
This is the insight most textbooks skip. The o-să and am-să futures are historically the same kind of construction — a verb of having/wanting plus să plus the conjunctive. Romanian once had a family of future periphrases, and two survivors made it into the modern colloquial language along different paths:
- In am să, the auxiliary stayed alive as a normal verb and kept its personal endings.
- In o să, one third-person form (o, originally from a vrea) detached, stopped agreeing, and spread to all persons as a frozen particle.
So you are not looking at one rule with an exception, but at two parallel patterns with different agreement behaviour. Treat them as separate templates rather than trying to derive one from the other.
Register and flavour
The am-să future is fully colloquial and very common, especially in the first and second person singular — am să, ai să. It often carries a faintly more intentional or emphatic colour than neutral o să: a sense of "I'm going to" as a personal resolve or a confident assertion, rather than a flat prediction. The difference is subtle and many speakers use them interchangeably, but the nuance is real.
Gata, am să-i spun tot adevărul.
That's it, I'm going to tell him the whole truth.
Ai să te obișnuiești cu orașul ăsta, promit.
You'll get used to this city, I promise.
Avem să discutăm asta mai pe larg altă dată.
We'll discuss this in more detail another time.
Au să-și dea seama în curând că au greșit.
They'll soon realise they were wrong.
Just as with o să, clitic pronouns slot between the auxiliary block and the verb: am să-i spun, ai să te obișnuiești.
Comparison with English
English has only one informal "going to" future, and it does not inflect the way am să does — I'm going to, she's going to changes the be part, but the "going to + verb" core is constant. Romanian, by contrast, offers a genuine choice between an invariable future (o să) and a personally-inflected one (am să). The closest English analogy to the o-să / am-să split is the stylistic difference between I'll go and I'm going to go — both ordinary, slightly different in flavour, freely interchangeable in most contexts.
Common Mistakes
❌ Eu am o să plec.
Incorrect — never combine the inflected auxiliary 'am' with the frozen 'o'. Pick one system.
✅ Eu am să plec. / Eu o să plec.
I'll leave. (either future is correct on its own)
❌ El are să merge cu noi.
Incorrect — uses indicative 'merge' instead of conjunctive 'meargă'.
✅ El are să meargă cu noi. / El o să meargă cu noi.
He'll come with us.
❌ Noi am să plecăm devreme.
Incorrect — 'am' is 1sg; the 1pl auxiliary is 'avem'.
✅ Noi avem să plecăm devreme. / Noi o să plecăm devreme.
We'll leave early.
❌ Ei au să spune tot.
Incorrect — 3pl needs the conjunctive 'spună', not indicative 'spune'.
✅ Ei au să spună tot. / Ei o să spună tot.
They'll tell everything.
Key Takeaways
- am să / ai să / are să / avem să / aveți să / au să
- conjunctiv builds a fully colloquial future where the auxiliary agrees with the subject.
- This contrasts directly with the o-să future, where o never changes.
- The two are historical siblings that diverged — keep them as separate patterns; never blend them into am o să.
- In the third person, speech tends to collapse are să / au să into o să anyway.
- The verb after să is always in the conjunctiv, so 3rd-person forms are plece, meargă, spună, not the indicative.
Now practice Romanian
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Colloquial Future (o să + conjunctiv)A2 — How to form and use the everyday spoken future with invariable 'o' plus 'să' and the conjunctive — the default future of conversational Romanian.
- The Romanian Futures: OverviewA2 — A map of Romanian's four ways to talk about the future — voi merge, o să merg, am să merg, and the bare present — and, crucially, which register each one belongs to.
- The Literary Future (voi + infinitive)B1 — How to form Romanian's formal future — the auxiliary voi/vei/va/vom/veți/vor plus the bare short infinitive — where it belongs (news, literature, officialdom), and how clitics attach to it.
- The Verb a avea (to have): PresentA1 — The present forms of a avea — the possession verb that is also the engine of the compound past, plus the idioms where Romanian 'has' what English 'is'.
- Conjunctiv Present: FormationA2 — How to form the present conjunctiv — identical to the indicative except for the 3rd person, which flips the theme vowel.