The future, the conditional and educated guesses

The easiest way to talk about the future is the one English already has: "going to". In Spanish it is the present of ir + a + an infinitive.

• voy a cocinar, vas a ver, va a llover

• vamos a salir, van a llegar

Use it for plans you have already made and for things you can see coming: Vamos a pintar la cocina el sábado. Mira esas nubes: va a llover. In everyday conversation it is far more common than the simple future, especially in Latin America.

The two traps are small ones. First, do not forget the a: voy a comer, never voy comer. Second, the infinitive does not change; only ir is conjugated, so it is vamos a comprar, not vamos a compramos.

Pronouns can go before ir or on the end of the infinitive, and both are correct: lo voy a llamar or voy a llamarlo.

Vos vas a has the same form as tú vas a, and in Spain you will hear vosotros vais a for "you all". Note that vamos a + infinitive can also mean "let's": ¡Vamos a ver! The context tells you which one is meant.

The simple future is built on the whole infinitive, with one set of endings for every verb: -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -án.

• hablaré, comerás, vivirá, viajaremos, llegarán

A dozen common verbs shorten the stem, but the endings stay the same:

• tener → tendré, poner → pondré, salir → saldré, venir → vendré

• poder → podré, saber → sabré, haber → habrá

• hacer → haré, decir → diré, querer → querré

Use it for predictions, promises and statements about the future that are not just a plan you have made: Mañana lloverá en el norte. Te lo prometo, no se lo diré a nadie. El año que viene mi hija tendrá diez años. It sounds a little more formal or more certain than ir a, which is why forecasts, news and promises use it.

The English-speaker trap is translating "will" word by word in requests. "Will you help me?" is a request, not a prediction, so Spanish says ¿Me ayudas? in the present. Keep the future for what will happen.

Watch the accents: every form except -emos carries one (hablaré, hablarás, hablará, hablarán). Vos uses the tú form (vos tendrás), and Spain adds vosotros tendréis.

The conditional is the "would" form. Like the future, it is built on the whole infinitive, and it uses the imperfect endings of -er verbs: -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -ían. The irregular stems are the same as in the future: tendría, podría, saldría, haría, diría, querría.

Its most useful job in daily life is softening what you say:

• asking: ¿Podrías pasarme la sal? ¿Te importaría cerrar la ventana?

• wanting: Me gustaría reservar una mesa. (Quisiera is also very common.)

• advising: Deberías descansar más.

• suggesting: Sería mejor salir temprano.

English speakers often go straight to the present (quiero, debes, puedes), which is correct but can sound blunt to a waiter, a colleague or a stranger. When English uses "would", "could" or "should" to be polite, the conditional is usually the natural Spanish.

The trap is the accent: every ending carries one, on the í, so write podría and gustaría, never podria. Me gustaría follows the gustar pattern, so the thing you would like is the subject: me gustarían unas vacaciones. Spain adds vosotros podríais; vos uses the tú form.

The conditional also describes imagined actions: what you would do in another situation, what someone would think, what would happen. En tu lugar, yo aceptaría el trabajo. Mi padre nunca diría eso.

Often the imagined situation is given by a short phrase rather than a full "if" clause:

• en tu lugar, yo que tú: "if I were you"

• con más tiempo, con más dinero: "with more time/money"

• por nada del mundo: "not for anything"

This lets you speak hypothetically without the past subjunctive, which full "if" sentences need (that comes in a later course).

The English-speaker trap is "would" for past habits: "When I was a child, we would go to the beach every summer." That "would" means "used to", and Spanish uses the imperfect: íbamos a la playa. Ask whether the action is imagined (conditional) or something that really happened again and again (imperfect).

Remember the irregular stems from the future (tendría, saldría, haría, diría, pondría, vendría, podría, sabría) and the accent on every ending. Vos uses the tú form; Spain adds vosotros haríais.

Spanish has a neat trick: the simple future, used about the present, turns a statement into a guess. Where English says "must be", "probably", "I wonder" or "could it be", Spanish often just uses the future.

• ¿Dónde estará Marta? "Where can Marta be? / I wonder where Marta is."

• Serán las tres. "It must be about three."

• Tendrá unos cuarenta años. "He's probably around forty."

• Estará durmiendo. "She's probably asleep."

Nothing here is about the future; you are speculating about right now. The trap for English speakers is reading serán las tres as "it will be three". If you are not sure of a fact in the present, the future is the most natural way to say so, and it sounds much more native than adding probablemente to every sentence.

Questions in the future are often a speaker wondering aloud, not really asking: ¿Quién será a estas horas? "Who could that be at this hour?" The answer is often a guess in the future too: Será el vecino.

This use is common in every variety of Spanish, including Latin America, where the future is rarer for real predictions.

What the future does for the present, the conditional does for the past. To guess about something that happened, put the verb you would have used in the preterite or imperfect into the conditional.

• Serían las diez cuando llegó. "It must have been about ten when he arrived."

• Tendría unos treinta años. "She was probably around thirty."

• Estaría cansado. "He must have been tired."

• ¿Por qué no vendría? "I wonder why she didn't come."

The pattern is easy to see side by side:

• certain: Eran las diez. / guess: Serían las diez.

• certain: No vino porque estaba enfermo. / guess: No vino; estaría enfermo.

The English-speaker trap is that "would" never appears in the English. You hear "probably", "must have been" or "I wonder why" and reach for probablemente or debió de, which are not wrong but miss the most natural Spanish. When the English guesses about the past, try the conditional first.

Do not confuse this with a real hypothetical: sería un error can mean "it would be a mistake" or "it was probably a mistake". The context about time usually makes it clear. This use is the same in every variety.