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German Grammar * Review & Exercises

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FUTURE TENSE

The future tense is used to express actions that will occur in the future. Forming and/or using future tense are quite simple: use present tense (see below) or use proper future tense, employing the auxiliary werden.

SINGULAR PLURAL
ichwerde wirwerden
duwirst ihrwerdet
er/sie/es (man)wird__ sie/Siewerden
Werden is slightly irregular:
  • it drops the d for 2nd SG,
  • it drops the -t conjugation ending for 3rd SG.
  • it has a vowel change e ==> i (which is regular as far as present tense vowel change verbs go; compare for example: geben ==> du gibst, er/sie/es gibt)
  • it adds an e in 2nd PL: ihr werdet (this is normal, though. Compare reden ==> ihr redet).

When the situation is clear, present tense may be used:

A phrase in future tense, including a modal:

  1. Anton muß nach München fahren.
  2. Anton wird nach München fahren müssen>.
  3. As above, with main and dependent clause:

  4. Anton sagt, daß er nach München fahren muß.
  5. Anton sagt, daß er nach München wird fahren müssen.

ATTENTION
In example 4, the conjugated (=finite) verb werde is NOT at the end--it directly precedes the "double infinitive". This construction does not occur very much. Why? In such cases, present tense would be used to express future (as in example 3).

NOTE ALSO:

==> English "will" is German "werden" (future tense).
==> German "will" is English "want to" (modal verb, singular).
They never mean the same thing!

SPECIAL USAGE

Future tense in combination with certain adverbs is used to express determination, assumption, or probability. These forms are not used overly much, however, you should be familiar with them. Note the use of adverbs such as sicher (for sure...), bestimmt (for sure, definitely...), gewiß (certainly...), wohl (probably, likely...), and schon (already...) or vielleicht (perhaps, maybe...).


ÜBUNGEN

If you cannot enter special characters directly:
* Cut & Paste the appropriate character from here: ß - Ä - ä - Ö - ö - Ü - ü
* Or, for the "ß" use the capital letter "B" (or an "sz"), for umlauts use these transcriptions: ä = ae; Ä = AE; ü = ue etc.

A. Schreiben Sie die Sätze in Futur (mit "werden").

1. Renate schreibt oft.
2. Nein, ich bin nicht hier.
3. Wohin gehst du?
4. Liest du das Buch?
5. Ich rufe dich an.
6. Kannst du kommen?

B. Übersetzen Sie. Vorsicht, einige Sätze sind schwierig!

1. Sophie will do it tomorrow.

2. He will arrive soon.

3. Andreas, will you do it?

4. Was willst du von mir?

5. I want to know that!

6. Wir werden eine Prüfung schreiben.

7. Adolf wird müde.

8. Juliane says (that) she will have to do it later.

9. Morgen wird das Wetter sicher besser.

10. Sie wird wohl später kommen.

11. Vielleicht werden wir das Spiel gewinnen!



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