In short

Portuguese has two tenses built by bolting endings onto the whole infinitive: the futuro simples (falarei - “I will speak”) and the condicional (falaria - “I would speak”). In real speech the synthetic future is less about plans - those go to ir + infinitivo from Lesson 11 - and more about prediction and guesswork (Serão dez horas - “It must be ten”), while the conditional is your politeness and “would” gear (Gostaria de…). Both are wonderfully regular: only dizer, fazer and trazer are irregular, and even those three share one short stem across both tenses.

The rule

Building the futuro simples

Take the full infinitive and add one set of endings - the same endings for all three conjugations (-ar, -er, -ir):

-ei, -ás, -á, -emos, -ão

So falar gives falarei, falarás, falará, falaremos, falarão; comer gives comerei…; partir gives partirei…. Notice the written accents: the tu, ele and eles forms carry them (-ás, -á, -ão), and they are obligatory - the accent is the only thing separating falará (“he will speak”) from other forms.

What the future is really for

Everyday plans in European Portuguese use the near future ir + infinitivo (Vou telefonar-te logo), not the synthetic future. Keep falarei for three jobs:

• Prediction and formal statements, mostly in writing: O comboio partirá às oito. - “The train will leave at eight.”
• Promises and firm intentions: Farei tudo o que puder. - “I’ll do everything I can.”
• Conjecture about the present - a guess dressed as a future. This is where the synthetic future shines in speech: Onde está o João? - Estará no escritório. (“Where’s João? - He’s probably at the office.”); Terá uns quarenta anos. (“He must be about forty.”).

Building the condicional

Same recipe: the whole infinitive plus a single set of endings for all conjugations:

-ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -iam

falar gives falaria, falarias, falaria, falaríamos, falariam. Only the nós form takes a written accent (-íamos). Because the eu and ele endings are identical (-ia), context or a stated pronoun tells them apart.

What the conditional is for

• Politeness - softening a request or a wish: Gostaria de reservar uma mesa.; Poderia ajudar-me?; Seria possível…?
• “Would” from a past viewpoint (future-in-the-past): Ela disse que voltaria mais tarde. - “She said she would come back later.”
• Conjecture about the past: Seriam três horas quando ele chegou. - “It must have been about three when he arrived.”

The full “if… then…” pattern (se + imperfect subjunctive -> conditional) needs a tense you meet later, so this lesson stays with the uses above.

The three irregular verbs

Only dizer, fazer and trazer (and compounds like desfazer, predizer) are irregular. They drop to a short stem, identical in both tenses:

• dizer -> dir-: direi… / diria…
• fazer -> far-: farei… / faria…
• trazer -> trar-: trarei… / traria…

A note on pronoun placement

When an object pronoun (Lesson 29) attaches to a future or conditional with no proclisis trigger, EP writing tucks it inside the verb: dar-lhe-ei (“I will give him”), dir-te-ia (“I would tell you”). That inside placement is mesoclisis, saved for Lesson 51. After a trigger such as não, it is ordinary proclisis: não te direi.

Forms & patterns

Futuro simples - the one ending set on the whole infinitive:

Condicional - same method, different endings:

The only irregular stems (both tenses):

Examples

Common mistakes

• Vou comprarei o bilhete. -> Comprarei o bilhete. (or Vou comprar…) - choose one future, the near future ir + infinitivo or the synthetic form; never stack the two.
• dizerei, fazerei, trazerei -> direi, farei, trarei - only dizer, fazer, trazer are irregular, and they cut to the short stems dir-, far-, trar-.
• falara muito, comerao logo -> falará muito, comerão logo - the future accents are obligatory; unaccented falara is even a different, older past-tense form, so dropping the accent changes the word.
• Ela disse que chegará tarde. -> Ela disse que chegaria tarde. - after a past main verb, “would” is the conditional (chegaria), not the future.
• Te direi a verdade. -> Dir-te-ei a verdade. - with no proclisis trigger, the pronoun goes inside the future/conditional (mesoclisis, Lesson 51), not loose before it.
• Poderias me ajudar? -> Poderias ajudar-me? - in neutral EP the pronoun follows the verb (enclisis); placing me before it without a trigger is Brazilian.

Tips

• Reach for ir + infinitivo for plans in speech (Vou telefonar-lhe); save the synthetic future for writing and for conjecture - Serão nove horas (“It must be nine o’clock”) is where it truly earns its place out loud.
• The conditional is the polite gear: Gostaria de…, Poderia…, Seria melhor… soften almost anything into good manners.
• Even more colloquially, EP swaps the polite conditional for the imperfeito do indicativo (Lesson 22): in a cafe you will hear Queria um café and Gostava de ir far more than Quereria / Gostaria. Both are correct; the imperfeito just sounds warmer and more spoken.
• Build both tenses the same lazy way: keep the whole infinitive and add the future endings (-ei, -ás, -á, -emos, -ão) or the conditional endings (-ia, -ias, -ia, -íamos, -iam). Memorize the accents, then the only exceptions left are dizer, fazer, trazer.
• Use the conditional for “would / was going to” seen from the past: Eu sabia que eles não chegariam a tempo (“I knew they wouldn’t arrive in time”).
• In Brazil: mesoclisis (dir-te-ei) is felt as bookish and avoided; a pronoun with the future or conditional is simply placed before the verb (te direi, te diria), whereas neutral EP writing keeps it inside.