Imperfective Future Indicative

The imperfective future indicative tense describes a continuing, repetitive or habitual occurrence (→ imperfective aspect) in the future, which is based on the known state of affairs (→ indicative mood). This tense does not have an equivalent in English and has to be translated with different tenses depending on the context. When it refers to a habitual or repeated occurrence, the future simple tense or “used to” structure can be used. When it refers to a continuing or an ongoing occurrence, the future progressive tense can be used. Since the imperfective aspect is a superset of the progressive aspect, Persian’s imperfective future tense can be used in situations where English uses its future progressive tense.

Persian distinguishes between past and non-past tenses. The present and future are expressed with the same tenses. Consequently, the imperfective future tense is expressed using the same grammatical form as imperfective present. The context indicates the exact time.

Examples

Regional Form

In some regional dialects of Persian, there is a dedicated form for imperfective future. This form is not common in standard Persian.

The apocopated form of an infinitive is obtained by removing “-an” from the end. The following table shows the conjugation of خواستن (“xwâstan”; to want, to will) in perfective present.

Conjugation

Simple verbs

• Verb: رفتن (“raftan”; to go)
• Apocopated infinitive: رفت (“raft”)

Compound verbs

• Verb: کار کردن (“kâr kardan”; to work)
• Preverb: کار (“kâr”)
• Apocopated infinitive: کرد (“kard”)

Negative conjugation

The negative form of the imperfective future tense is constructed by prefixing ن (“ne”) to می (“mi-”). In the presence of the imperfective particle “mi”, the negation particle “na” is pronounced “ne”.