Cuando lleguemos a la granja, mi hermana ya habrá hecho muchas fotos del campo.

When we arrive at the farm, my sister will already have taken many photos of the countryside.

Breakdown of Cuando lleguemos a la granja, mi hermana ya habrá hecho muchas fotos del campo.

• mi: my
• cuando: when
• nosotros: we
• a: to

Questions & Answers about Cuando lleguemos a la granja, mi hermana ya habrá hecho muchas fotos del campo.

Why is it “lleguemos” (subjunctive) and not “llegamos” or “llegaremos” after “cuando”?

In Spanish, when “cuando” introduces a future event that has not yet happened, the verb that follows is normally in the present subjunctive, not in the present or future indicative.

• Cuando lleguemos a la granja…
  Literally: When we arrive at the farm…
  Meaning: referring to a future moment that is still uncertain/not realized.

Compare:

• Cuando llegamos a la granja, mi hermana hace muchas fotos.
  = When we (normally) arrive at the farm, my sister takes lots of photos.
  Here it’s a habitual action, so we use the indicative: llegamos, hace.

• Cuando lleguemos a la granja, mi hermana ya habrá hecho muchas fotos.
  = When we arrive at the farm, my sister will already have taken many photos.
  This is talking about a specific future time, so we use present subjunctive (lleguemos).

Using “llegaremos” in this position (Cuando llegaremos…) is ungrammatical in standard Spanish.

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So is “lleguemos” a kind of future tense?