Love-Spanish.com: Tell Me, What Will You Do Next Year?

SCENARIO

Imagine you are talking to a relative, a friend or a colleague. Perhaps you are talking about your plans for improving your Spanish. The other person wants to know something about your plans for next year. So he/ she says to you something like: "tell me, what will you do next year?".

In Spanish, he/ she could choose to be less formal and say to you:

Dime, ¿qué harás el año que viene?

On the other hand, he/ she could choose to be more formal and say to you:

Dígame, ¿qué hará (usted) el año que viene?

OUR TIP

You could think of the question you are asked as a typical prompt to talk about your plans for the future (next year). When talking about what you are doing/ planning to do/ thinking about doing in the future, you DO NOT need to be concerned about levels of formality. You just need to concentrate on expressing your plans for the future. In this case, perhaps you want to say that next year you will:

Make some change to my life.
Continue studying.
Buy something.
Take up a sport/ leisure activity.
Make some changes at work.
Make a visit to a country/ city/ etc.

Here are some examples of how you talk about your plans for next year:

El año que viene me casaré* (next year I will get married).
El año que viene continuaré estudiando español* (next year I will continue studying Spanish).
El año que viene me compraré un coche nuevo* (next year I will buy a new car).
El año que viene empezaré a jugar a golf (next year I will take up golf).
El año que viene pediré una subida de sueldo (next year I will ask for a salary increase).
El año que viene iré a los Estados Unidos (next year I will go to the USA).

Now you should practice talking about the future to someone who says to you:

Dime, ¿qué harás el año que viene?

*Please see grammar below

Grammar-The Future

These are examples of expressions using the future tense to express the future. Remember that in Spanish we have three separate ways to express the future:

1. Using the present Tense.- In Spanish we can use the present tense to express the future (plans/ intentions/ events/ etc.). Some examples of expressions of the future of this type are:

Mañana vamos a la playa* (tomorrow we are going to the beach).
La semana que viene es mi cumpleaños (next week is my birthday).
El mes que viene no tengo exámenes (next month I don't have any exams).
¿Qué hacéis el año que viene?* (what are you -plural doing next year).

Notes

*In English, when expressing the future the continuous present is often used (for example "tomorrow we are going to the beach"). In contrast, in Spanish the ordinary present is used throughout ( "mañana vamos a la playa"/ "¿qué hacéis el año que viene?").

2. Using the Future Tense*.- In Spanish we can use the future tense to express the future (plans/ intentions/ events/ etc.). Some examples of expressions of the future of this type are: :

Mañana iremos a la playa* (tomorrow we will go/ we will be going to the beach[*]).
La semana que viene será mi cumpleaños (next week it will be my birthday).
El mes que viene no tendré exámenes (next month I will not have/ will not be having any exams[*]).
¿Qué haréis el año que viene?* (what will you -plural do/ what will you -plural be doing next year)*.

Notes

*Please note that this form of expressing the future (using the future tense) is not quite so common in spoken Spanish language.

[*]Please note also that in Spanish, the use of the continuous future tense (e.g., we will be going to the beach) is a lot less common when expressing the future and should not be used in future expressions such as this one.

3. Using "ir + a" followed by an infinitive*.- In Spanish we can use the construction "ir + a" plus an infinitive to express the future (plans/ intentions/ etc.). Some examples of wish expressions of this type are:

Mañana vamos a ir a la playa* (tomorrow we are going to go the beach).
La semana que viene va a ser mi cumpleaños (next week is going to be my birthday).
El mes que viene no voy a tener exámenes (next month I am not going to have any exams).
¿Qué váis a hacer el año que viene?* (what are you -plural going to do next year?).

Notes

*Please note that this a very common form of expressing the future in spoken Spanish language.

Now you should practise expressing the future with some examples of your own.

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