Probable Future Tense Chart

 

The Probable Future

 Hello my fellow students welcome to the future. We are gonna be learning one way of making the future tense in Korean. Funny thing about the future tense in Korean, its one of those things that does not translate perfectly from English. There are multiple ways of talking about the future in Korean. We will start with one of the more common and versatile ways: the probable future. 

In English when we talk about the future we use the sentences like I will blank you will blank it will blank or I'm going to blank You're going to blank It's going to blank.

but you see Koreans don't pretend that they can predict the future with absolute certainty. So they don't say things like "It's going to rain" the say "It's probably going to rain". and they don't even need to include the word 'probably' in the sentence (because who wants to stick an extra word their sentence like that) Instead they just conjugate their verbs into the probable future tense and the 'probably' part is baked right in!

So lets learn the probable future.

We start with an infinitive verb. Lets choose ha-da and meok-da

                                    하다                      먹다

then you do the usual thing and cut off the -da

    하다                           먹다

하                               먹

then you've got to add the probable future tense ending

if you verb root ends in a vowel the ending is ㄹ거야 ㄹ거예요  ㄹ겁니다 

for verbs that end in vowels and

을거야 을거예요  을겁니다 

for verbs that end in consonants

하다 => 할거야 할거예요 할겁니다

먹다 => 먹을거야 먹을거예요 먹을겁니다

and it's the same for all types of verbs. It's not like present tense or past tense where we needed a different ending for eo verbs, a verbs and ha-da verbs. All the verbs get the same ending when we conjugate them into the probable future 

ㄹ거야 ㄹ거예요  ㄹ겁니다 

This for verb roots that end in vowels and

을거야 을거예요  을겁니다 end in consonants.

this for verb roots that 

You may also see it with a little space added right here. Both with the space and without the space are equally correct.

ㄹ 거야 ㄹ 거예요  ㄹ 겁니다 end in vowels.

을 거야 을 거예요  을 겁니다 end in consonants.

AND THAT'S IT! That's your probable future tense. Here are some practice questions for you to work on if you like. The answers are in the comments section.

But let me tell you more about this probable future tense ending. Where does this ending actually come from, what does it actually mean?

Well, you recognize the last part, don't you? It's Korean for "is", "am", and "are" 

and this part? geo. comes from 것 (geot). The Korean word for 'thing'

and the "rl" That part is a verb suffix that indicates future. 

So if I make a statement like "I will eat chicken."

저는 치킨을 먹을거예요.

it means

"I eat-is-future-thing chicken."

Literal translations are weird! 

maybe, since we're already rearranging the word order, the literal translation could be 

"I eat chicken is a future thing" 

I think that's a ... uhm... well it could get the point across if you started talking that way in English. 

 할거예요

do(future) thing is

Now let me tell you a little more about the probable future tense... You can also use it for the present.

If someone asks you 'Should we call Tim?' You might answer 'Tim? Well it's 11:00pm right now. He's probably going to be in bed.'

You see that! We used "going to be" even though we are talking about the present. You can do the same thing in Korean

Tim은 침대에 있을거예요.

Tim is probably going to be in bed.

So now not only can you describe the future, but also you can describe things that are probably happening in the present. Thanks to this lesson.

And thanks for studying with me.