Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo. - I'm sure that today we will arrive on time.

In Spanish, the present indicative is often used to talk about the near future, especially when the future event is quite certain or already planned.

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo = I’m sure we’ll arrive on time today
More literally: I’m sure today we arrive on time (but in English we naturally shift it to future)

You could also say:

Seguro que hoy llegaremos a tiempo.

Both are correct. The difference is subtle:

Present (llegamos): very common, especially in spoken Spanish; sounds immediate and confident.
Future (llegaremos): a bit more “neutral” or slightly more formal/explicit about futurity.

In this kind of context, Spaniards often prefer the present instead of the future, especially when certainty or arrangements are implied.

What exactly does seguro que mean here, and why isn’t it estoy seguro de que?

Seguro que is a very common, slightly informal way to say “I’m sure that…”, but without explicitly saying yo estoy.

You can think of it as a “shortened” or fossilized form of:

Estoy seguro de que hoy llegamos a tiempo.

Differences:

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
- Colloquial, very common, especially in speech.
- The subject (“I”) is understood from context, not stated.
Estoy seguro de que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
- Slightly more explicit and a bit more formal.
- Grammatically complete: seguro clearly agrees with yo (which could be seguro for a man or segura for a woman).

So seguro que = “surely / I’m sure (that)”, functioning almost like an adverbial expression of certainty.

If I’m a woman, should I say Segura que hoy llegamos a tiempo?

No. In this specific impersonal expression, Spanish uses seguro (masculine singular), not segura.

Compare:

Impersonal / set phrase:
- Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
  - Sounds natural.
  - Used by men and women.
Personal, with an explicit subject:
- A man: Estoy seguro de que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
- A woman: Estoy segura de que hoy llegamos a tiempo.

So:

Seguro que… → fixed, impersonal expression → always seguro.
Estoy seguro/segura de que… → agrees with the speaker’s gender.

Why doesn’t the sentence use nosotros (Nosotros llegamos a tiempo)?

Spanish normally omits subject pronouns when the verb ending already shows who the subject is. This is called a pro‑drop language.

llegamos clearly indicates “we” (1st person plural).
Nosotros is only needed for emphasis, contrast, or clarity, for example:
- Nosotros hoy llegamos a tiempo, ellos no.
  We are arriving on time today; they aren’t.

In your sentence, adding nosotros would sound a bit heavy and unnecessary:

✔ Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo. (natural)
△ Seguro que hoy nosotros llegamos a tiempo. (possible, but marked and emphatic)

Why is it llegar a tiempo and not something like llegar en tiempo?

Llegar a tiempo is a fixed idiomatic expression meaning “to arrive on time”.

a tiempo = on time / in time (not late)

You do not normally say llegar en tiempo in this sense. Some related expressions:

Llegar tarde – to arrive late
Llegar pronto / temprano – to arrive early
Llegar a la hora – also “to arrive on time” (less common, more specific to “the set time”)
Llegar a tiempo para + infinitive – to arrive in time to…
- Llegamos a tiempo para ver el inicio.

So, a tiempo is just the standard collocation with llegar for “on time”.

Could I also say Seguro que llegamos a tiempo hoy? Is there any difference in meaning?

Yes, you can. Both are correct:

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
Seguro que llegamos a tiempo hoy.

The meaning is the same, but the emphasis shifts slightly:

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
- More natural and common.
- Slight extra focus on hoy as the time frame at the start.
Seguro que llegamos a tiempo hoy.
- Also fine, but less typical.
- Feels a bit more neutral; hoy sounds slightly “added on” at the end.

In everyday Peninsular Spanish, adverbs of time like hoy, mañana, esta noche often go toward the beginning of the clause:
Hoy llegamos a tiempo, Mañana salgo temprano, etc.

Could I say Seguramente hoy llegamos a tiempo instead of Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo? What’s the difference?

You can say both, but they don’t feel identical:

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
- Very confident: I’m sure we’ll be on time today.
- High degree of certainty.
Seguramente hoy llegamos a tiempo.
- Means we’ll probably / most likely arrive on time today.
- Suggests probability, not absolute certainty.

So:

seguro que → strong certainty.
seguramente → high probability, but still leaves more room for doubt.

Why does seguro que take the indicative (llegamos) and not the subjunctive?

Because seguro que here expresses certainty, and in Spanish, when a speaker asserts something as certain, they use the indicative.

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo. (certainty → indicative)

Contrast this with negative or doubtful expressions, which trigger subjunctive:

No es seguro que hoy lleguemos a tiempo.
It’s not certain that we’ll arrive on time today.

Patterns to notice:

Es seguro que… → indicative
Estoy seguro de que… → indicative
No estoy seguro de que… → subjunctive
No es seguro que… → subjunctive

Since your sentence is clearly affirming something, it correctly uses the indicative llegamos.

Is Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo considered informal in Spain?

It’s colloquial, but very normal and widely used in both informal and semi‑formal contexts.

Some alternatives by register:

Neutral/standard:
- Estoy seguro de que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
More formal / written:
- Con toda seguridad, hoy llegaremos a tiempo.
- Es seguro que hoy llegaremos a tiempo. (less common in everyday speech)

In everyday Peninsular Spanish:

Seguro que + indicativo is extremely frequent in speech.
It’s fine in most contexts except very formal writing or very careful speech, where you might prefer estoy seguro de que….

Can I move seguro later in the sentence, like Hoy llegamos seguro a tiempo?

Not with the same meaning.

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
- Fixed structure meaning: I’m sure that today we’ll arrive on time.

If you say:

Hoy llegamos seguro a tiempo.

this sounds odd or ambiguous. It would be interpreted more like:

Hoy llegamos, seguro, a tiempo.
where seguro might be taken as a parenthetical (“for sure”) or as an adverb modifying llegamos, and the sentence becomes stylistically strange.

For the meaning “I’m sure that…”, keep seguro que together at the beginning (or very close to the beginning) of the clause:

Seguro que hoy llegamos a tiempo.
Hoy, seguro que llegamos a tiempo. (also possible, with emphasis on today)