Future Tenses: Simple and Anterior

The futur simple expresses an action that will take place.  The
futur antérieur expresses an action that will have taken place
before another future action.  The future tense is used just like it
is in English, however, in French, the future is always used after
quand or lorsque (when), dès que or

aussitôt que (as soon as) and tant que (as long as.)

To form the future tense, use the infinitive and add these endings that resemble
those of avoir.  However, you drop the -e from -re verbs.

-ai	-ons
-as	-ez
-a	-ont

And of course, there has to be exceptions.  Here are the irregular stems
for the future tense

(these will also be used in the conditional tense):

Irregular Stems

aller	ir-		pleuvoir	pleuvr-
avoir	aur-		pouvoir	pourr-
courir	courr-		recevoir	recevr-
devoir	devr-		savoir	saur-
envoyer	enverr-		tenir	tiendr-
être	ser-		valoir	vaudr-
faire	fer-		venir	viendr-
falloir	faudr-		voir	verr-
mourir	mourr-		vouloir	voudr-

Other exceptions:  For appeler and jeter, double the consonant.

 For nettoyer and payer, change the y to i.  For acheter, add an
accent grave.  For préférer, the accents all remain the
same.

jeter			payer			acheter			préférer
jetterai	jetterons		paierai	paierons		achèterai	achèterons		préférerai	préférerons
jetteras	jetterez		paieras	paierez		achèteras	achèterez		préféreras	préférerez
jettera	jetteront		paiera	paieront		achètera	achèteront		préférera	préféreront

To form the futur antérieur, use the future of either avoir
or être (whichever the main verb takes) and the past participle of
the main verb.

Quand ils reviendront, ils auront changé.  When they come
back, they will have changed.
Dès qu'ils seront revenus, ils voudront repartir.  As
soon as they have returned, they will want to leave again.

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This article was used with permission from:
Indo-European Languages