Afrikaans grammar is incredibly straightforward when it comes to talking about the future.

You only need to learn one helping verb to easily form the future tense.

You don’t need to memorize complicated verb conjugations like you do in many other languages.

This guide will show you exactly how to construct future tense sentences in Afrikaans.

The basic rule of the future tense

To talk about the future in Afrikaans, you use the auxiliary verb sal.

The word sal directly translates to “will” or “shall” in English.

You don’t need to change or conjugate the main verb at all.

The main verb always stays in its basic dictionary form.

Because Afrikaans verbs don’t change based on the pronoun, sal looks exactly the same for every person.

Here’s a table showing how simple this is across all pronouns.

Here are a few basic examples in action.

Word order in the future tense

Sentence structure changes slightly when you add more details to your sentence.

Afrikaans word order places the main verb at the very end of the sentence.

The helping verb sal stays in the second position of the sentence right after the subject.

Any extra information you want to add goes between sal and your main verb.

This extra information can be a specific time, a direct object, or a place.

Notice how the main verb lees (read) is pushed to the absolute end of the sentence.

Here’s another example showing the verb moving to the end.

Using gaan for the future tense

You’ll also hear native speakers use the word gaan to talk about the future.

The word gaan literally translates to “going to” in English.

This is extremely common in everyday spoken Afrikaans, especially in Cape Afrikaans regional dialects.

The sentence structure works exactly the same way as it does with sal.

You place gaan in the second position and move the main verb to the end.

Making the future tense negative

You must use the famous Afrikaans double negative to make future sentences negative.

This means you’ll use the negative word nie twice in your sentence.

The first nie generally goes after the verb sal or right after the object.

The second nie always goes at the very absolute end of the sentence.

Here’s an example of a longer negative sentence in the future tense.

Once you understand how to move the main verb to the end, forming the future tense becomes entirely predictable and easy to use.