# "Go" as a future auxiliary in other languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2024, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848 "2024-04-27T19:09:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/1 "2024-04-27T19:09:15Z")
My daughter is studying Spanish and was amused to find that, French and English, Spanish uses the word meaning go as a future auxiliary. I just asked a Portuguese who confirmed that his language does too. Do all Romance languages do this? Did Latin? I am pretty sure no Germanic language besides English does this. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/2 "2024-04-27T20:55:24Z")
Latin does have the construction “go” + supine. NB that in many (all?) Romance languages, the Latin future tense has been lost, so in French, Spanish, etc. you are left with what derives from infinitive + “have”. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/3 "2024-04-27T21:23:35Z")
Can you give an example in Spanish, French and English of what you mean by “use[s] the word meaning go as a future auxiliary”? I am not sure I get what you mean. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/4 "2024-04-27T21:24:54Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > NB that in many (all?) Romance languages, the Latin future tense has been lost, so in French, Spanish, etc. you are left with what derives from infinitive + “have”. French has two ways to form the future tense, the _futur simple_, which is a conjugated verb form (_je mangerai_) and the _futur composé_, which is a conjugated form of “to go” plus infinitive (_je vais manger_). The same goes for many other Romance language. I’m not sure if there is a difference in meaning or at least undertones, but both forms exist - possibly the _futur simple_ is more formal. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/5 "2024-04-27T21:34:14Z")
**Voy** a comer una manzana. Je **vais** manger une pomme. I **am going to** eat an apple. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/6 "2024-04-27T21:41:35Z")
The odd one out there is for me French: English and Spanish are not, in my hearing, the verb “go” or “ir”, but prepositional phrases: **voy _a_** and **I am going _to_** (interesting that you boldened “to” in English but not “a” in Spanish, BTW). As a Spanish/German bilingual I hear no difference between _Ich werde Essen/voy a comer_. But that may be the phenomenon of the fish not noticing the water it swims in, because it is simply there. Curious that it strikes you, **Hari\_Seldon** and Hari\_Seldon’s daughter as noteworthy, it sounds completely equivalent to me. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/7 "2024-04-27T21:49:15Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > (interesting that you boldened “to” in English but not “a” in Spanish, BTW) I noticed that discrepancy after posting and reckoned that it was not worth an edit, as _surely_ nobody would care. 😄 ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/8 "2024-04-27T22:09:38Z")
Good thing you did not edit it: my remark would have looked weird. Concerning the prepositional phrases I meant **phrasal verbs** (sorry, I had to look it up, I am a practical linguist, sometimes a cunning one, but not a very good theoretical one): there are a lot of them in English, for instance with the verb to look. Look after, look for, look up (see previous sentence), look at, look ahead, look back, look over, look forward to… when I have to translate them I forget the verb _to look_, because in other languages, Spanish in this case, _mirar detrás, mirar para, mirar arriba, mirar a, mirar adelante, mirar atrás, mirar encima, mirar adelante para_ (quickly translated literally in the same order as in English for the sake of the argument, please don’t crucify me for this) would not make any sense (well, _mirar a_ would, more or less, curiously). They have in my feeling little to do with the verb _to look_, or perhaps as a metaphor, as is shown by the fact that you say the verb is _to look_, but the phrasal verb is [listed](https://www.engvid.com/10-look-phrasal-verbs/) as _look ahead_, not _ **to** look ahead_. But that is just my feeling, I may be competely wrong and blind and deaf to something that strikes others as evident and interesting. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/9 "2024-04-28T00:00:24Z")
Relevant podcast: > **[Does English Have a Future?](https://slate.com/podcasts/lexicon-valley/2020/07/modal-verbs-future-tense)** > > Lots of languages get along just fine without a future tense. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/10 "2024-04-28T00:05:46Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > > [@DPRK](#): > > > > NB that in many (all?) Romance languages, the Latin future tense has been lost, so in French, Spanish, etc. you are left with what derives from infinitive + “have”. > > French has two ways to form the future tense, the _futur simple_, which is a conjugated verb form (_je mangerai_) and the _futur composé_, which is a conjugated form of “to go” plus infinitive (_je vais manger_). The same goes for many other Romance language. I’m not sure if there is a difference in meaning or at least undertones, but both forms exist - possibly the _futur simple_ is more formal. What I mean is, the Latin conjugated form is _manducabo_ (the “-bo” itself a residual form of some proto-Indo-European verb). But proto-proto French does not have this, instead you had to say something like “manducare habeo(???)” which morphed into _mangerai_. Re. “go”, the supine in _-um_ together with _eo_ was used to express aim, intention, purpose, to wish or prepare or be about to do something, etc., so perhaps this influenced the _futur compose_? Not sure though. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/11 "2024-04-28T02:43:49Z")
I would certainly say the verb is **to** look ahead and similarly for the others. And all the ones cited are at least metaphorical uses of look. Look ahead is the literal use of course. Look is a nominally intransitive verb whose object has to introduced by a preposition, usually at. Anyway, my point is that somehow a form of go got to be used as a future auxiliary. When my wife was teaching French she discovered that they could simply use je vais … for the future and je viens de for the past as a first approximation to get started. Later she would teach them the real conjugations. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/12 "2024-04-28T05:24:55Z")
Hebrew does something very similar, despite being neither a Romance nor a Germanic language. The verb “_halach_”, or “walk”, is often used in the same sense as the English “go”, including as a future auxiliary: אני **הולך** לאכול תפוח _Ani **holech** le’echol tapu’ach_ I **am going** to eat an apple I suspect it may be a bit of borrowed grammar, though. I don’t think you’ll find that construction in pre-Modern Hebrew. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/13 "2024-04-28T09:39:03Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > I’m not sure if there is a difference in meaning or at least undertones, but both forms exist - possibly the _futur simple_ is more formal. Not only is it more formal, it is also paradoxically more “indefinite” in spoken French. You use it for events that will happen at some undefined point, vague intentions, and soft suggestions for possible future course of action. _Vais + infinitif_ is used for events that are about to happen, firm decisions and strong(ish) suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/14 "2024-04-28T12:06:57Z")
German has an even more curious auxiliary verb to form the future: _Werden_, which literally means “to become”. Apparently, the underlying logic is that I am turning into a state of being where I’m going to do this in the future. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/15 "2024-04-28T13:29:29Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I suspect it may be a bit of borrowed grammar, though. I don’t think you’ll find that construction in pre-Modern Hebrew. My knowledge of this is rather patchy, but regular (non-Modern?) Hebrew basically only has two tenses, the perfect tense and the imperfect tense. For example, “Actions, &c., which are to be represented as about to take place, and as continuing a shorter or longer time in the future” are expressed in the imperfect: וַיַּ֤עַן מֹשֶׁה֙ וַיֹּ֔אמֶר וְהֵן֙ לֹֽא־יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ לִ֔י וְלֹ֥א יִשְׁמְע֖וּ בְּקֹלִ֑י כִּ֣י יֹֽאמְר֔וּ לֹֽא־נִרְאָ֥ה אֵלֶ֖יךָ יְהֹוָֽה׃ On the other hand, (e.g.) “facts which are undoubtedly imminent, and, therefore, in the imagination of the speaker, already accomplished” are _perfect:_ וַיֹּֽאמְרוּ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר הֵ֥ן גָּוַ֛עְנוּ אָבַ֖דְנוּ כֻּלָּ֥נוּ אָבָֽדְנוּ׃ So you can do a lot without resorting to a compound auxiliary construction. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/16 "2024-04-28T14:06:12Z")
However, @Alessan I did find the following use of “go” as an auxiliary, in this case to indicate a continuous or gradual action: וַיִּגְדַּ֖ל הָאִ֑ישׁ וַיֵּ֤לֶךְ הָלוֹךְ֙ וְגָדֵ֔ל עַ֥ד כִּֽי־גָדַ֖ל מְאֹֽד׃ ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-as-a-future-auxiliary-in-other-languages/1000848/17 "2024-04-28T16:34:50Z")
Not to derail the thread, but just noting that when I read the title, I thought it was about using code written in the Go computer language by programs written other languages, via a foreign function interface, sometime in the future.