Questions & Answers about Llegamos pasado mañana.
In Spanish, the present tense is very often used to talk about the future when the event is already planned, expected, or scheduled.
So Llegamos pasado mañana literally uses the present form llegamos, but the time expression pasado mañana makes it clear that it refers to the future.
This is very natural in Spanish, just like in English when we say:
- We arrive the day after tomorrow
- We’re arriving the day after tomorrow
You could also say Llegaremos pasado mañana, and that is correct too. It just sounds a bit more explicitly future-oriented. In everyday speech, the present is extremely common.
It can mean more than one thing, depending on context.
Llegamos can be:
- present tense: we arrive / we are arriving
- preterite: we arrived
This happens because the nosotros form of some -ar verbs is spelled the same in the present and the preterite.
So:
- Llegamos pasado mañana = clearly present used for future, because pasado mañana points to the future
- Llegamos ayer = clearly preterite, because ayer points to the past
The time expression usually removes the ambiguity.