This page will delve into the basic conjugation of verbs in the Persian language in the future tense, as a continuation of the previous two lessons.

Future Tense

The future tense is a bit of a strange concept in Persian. Most of the time, the proper future tense is simply not used, and instead the present-tense (see Lesson 7) is used, because oftentimes context infers that the event or thing occurring is happening in the future (either by using words like farda (فردا) meaning "tomorrow" or by context clues.) Therefore it is not uncommon to hear people using the present tense when referring to the future in Persian. Nevertheless for the times that the future tense is used (usually to emphasize when the event is occurring or to come off as more professional,) it is quite useful and important to know.

Khāstan (خواستن)

The Persian word khāstan (خواستن) is the infinitive of the word "to want," and is used when forming the simple future tense. In order to utilize it properly, the present stem of khāstan (خواستن) must be used, which is khāh (خواه). From this, we use the verb endings that we used in the previous two lessons. Recall:

Simply add the applicable conjugation ending to khāh (خواه), and we've already completed the first bit of verb conjugating in the future tense.

Obtaining the Past Stem

The past stem is used after the conjugated khāh (خواه) in order to fully conjugate the verb into the future tense. In order to get the past stem, simply remove the -an(َـَن) from the infinitive of the verb. For example:

• pushidan (پوشیدن) --> pushid (پوشید)

• shenākhtan (شناختن) --> shenākht (شناخت)

• āmadan (آمدن) --> āmad (آمد)

Now, let's put these two together. 

Putting it all Together

Let's say I want to say "I will be coming." We know that we have to conjugate khāh (خواه) in order to do this. We know the conjugating ending for the pronoun man (من), so khāh (خواه) becomes khāham (خواهم). Then, we obtain the past root of āmadan (آمدن), meaning "to come" in Persian as we did so above. Therefore we get khāham āmad (خواهم آمد), a simple two-step process that anybody can do.

Negation

In order to negate, add na- (-نَـ) in front of khāh (خواه) when conjugating khāstan (خواستن), like we previously saw in Lesson 8.

Example:

• "I will not be laughing." --> nakhāham khandid (نخواهم خندید)