Breakdown of Es posible que llegues temprano, pero tendré el almuerzo listo.
ser
to be
pero
but
tener
to have
listo
ready
temprano
early
el almuerzo
lunch
llegar
to arrive
que
that / than
posible
possible
Questions & Answers about Es posible que llegues temprano, pero tendré el almuerzo listo.
Why do we use llegues instead of llegas?
The phrase starts with es posible que (it is possible that), which is an impersonal expression. Because it expresses a possibility or doubt rather than a confirmed fact, it forces the next verb into the subjunctive mood. That is why we use the subjunctive llegues instead of the regular present tense llegas.
Why is there a "u" in llegues?
The infinitive is llegar. In the present subjunctive, -ar verbs take -e endings. If we just added an -e to the root "lleg-", we would get "lleges", which is pronounced with a soft "g" sound (like the English "h"). To keep the hard "g" sound of llegar, Spanish spelling rules require us to change "g" to "gu" before an "e". Therefore, it becomes llegues.
Is tendré the future tense of tener?
Yes! The verb tener is irregular in the future tense. Instead of using the full infinitive and adding the ending (which would be the incorrect "teneré"), it changes its stem to tendr-. Then we add the normal "yo" future ending -é to get tendré (I will have).
Why does listo come at the very end of the sentence?
In Spanish, the structure tener + noun + adjective is used just like in English to mean "to have [something] [in a certain state]". Here, tendré el almuerzo listo translates exactly to "I will have the lunch ready". The adjective listo agrees with the masculine singular noun el almuerzo and describes the state the lunch will be in.
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