THE FUTURE
The future breaks the pattern you have learned so far, in a way that makes it easier. Instead of removing the infinitive ending to find a stem, you keep the whole infinitive and attach the endings to it: hablar becomes hablaré, comer becomes comeré, vivir becomes viviré. One set of endings serves every verb in the language.
One set of endings, on the whole infinitive
No -ar/-er/-ir split at all — the classes only differ in their infinitives, and the infinitive is kept. Every form carries a written accent except nosotros.
hablar, comer, vivir + …
When Spanish actually uses it
Everyday speech often prefers ir a + infinitive for plans — voy a hablar, “I'm going to speak” — or even the plain present for the near future. The conjugated future leans more formal or more distant, and it has a second job English handles differently: guessing. Used about the present moment, it expresses probability.
Mañana hablaré con el director.
Tomorrow I will speak with the director. A firm statement about the future.
Serán las diez, más o menos.
It must be about ten o'clock. The future of probability: a guess about right now, not a prediction.
The twelve irregular stems
Twelve verbs — and their compounds — swap the infinitive for a shortened stem. The endings never change, even here. The stems come in three flavours:
the vowel drops
saber, poder → podré, querer → querré, caber
a d slips in
tener, poner → pondré, venir → vendré, salir → saldré, valer
a short stem
decir; hacer → haré (and haber → habré)
Compounds inherit their base verb's stem: contener gives contendré, componer gives compondré. See tener or decir with every irregular form marked in this color.
Learn the stem once, get two tenses
The conditional — hablaría, “I would speak” — is built on exactly the same stem as the future, regular or irregular: tendré and tendría, diré and diría. Master these twelve stems and you have already done the hard part of a tense you have not met yet.