Future tense

You have two past tenses now, so you go looking for the future. Then you ask somebody what they are doing tomorrow:

Was machst du morgen?

— Morgen fahre ich nach Berlin.

Both verbs are in the present tense, though the whole exchange is about tomorrow. That is not casual shorthand; it is the normal way German points forward.

Tomorrow, in the present tense

German has a future tense and mostly does not use it. If a time expression already says when, the present tense carries a plan forward on its own.

Nächste Woche ziehen wir um. — We're moving next week.

Der Zug kommt in fünf Minuten. — The train arrives in five minutes.

Morgen regnet es. — It's going to rain tomorrow.

Each is available with werden instead, and each sounds heavier for it. English does the same thing, but mainly for scheduled events — "the train leaves at six". German allows it for any future the context anchors, which is why English speakers reach for werden more often than they need to.

The future has to be clear from somewhere. Ich fahre nach Berlin on its own is ambiguous — right now, or the plan. Add morgen and it is unmistakably about tomorrow.

One trap while you are here: German will is not English will. wollen means to want.

Ich will nach Berlin fahren. — I want to go to Berlin.

When werden earns its place

werden is not an error, and not merely formal. It does jobs the present tense cannot.

• Nothing else points forward. Es wird regnen. — It's going to rain. Remove werden and the sentence is about the weather outside the window.
• Predictions about how things turn out. Das wird nicht funktionieren. — That is not going to work.
• Promises, where the extra weight is the point. Ich werde dir helfen. — I will help you.
• Distant or unanchored future. Eines Tages werde ich ein Haus bauen.
• Formal and written German — contracts, forecasts, official announcements.

The rough division: concrete plans go in the present tense, claims about how the world will turn out go in werden.

Futur I: werden plus an infinitive

In a main clause, werden takes second position and conjugates; the infinitive waits at the end, in the same sentence bracket the Perfekt uses. (A subordinate clause moves it; see below.)

Ich werde morgen nach Berlin fahren.

Sie wird uns nächstes Jahr besuchen. — She's going to visit us next year.

du wirst, er wird and ihr werdet are the forms to get right. Only wir werden and sie/Sie werden are identical to the infinitive; ich werde swaps its -n for an -e.

The werden collision

werden holds down three unrelated jobs, and beginners lose time to this. The giveaway is what sits at the end of the clause — with one exception, just below.

The participle line has one exception. When a participle has hardened into an ordinary adjective, werden is still to become, not the passive:

Er wird bekannt. — He's becoming well known.

Er wird betrunken. — He's getting drunk.

More on the auxiliary is in German passive voice.

The use most courses bury: probability

Here is what makes Futur I worth learning even though you rarely need it for the future: werden plus an infinitive very often says something about now, not later. It marks the sentence as an assumption.

Er wird schon zu Hause sein. — He's probably home by now.

Sie wird das wohl wissen. — She most likely knows that.

Neither is about the future. The tell is that no future time expression is present, and that a particle usually sits in the middle — wohl, schon, sicher. This is ordinary spoken German, at least as common as werden for a plan.

Futur II, honestly

Futur II is werden plus a past participle plus haben or sein, all stacked at the end.

Sie wird den Zug verpasst haben. — She'll have missed the train.

It is rare, and nearly always a guess about the past. For its textbook meaning, "will have finished it by then", German uses the Perfekt with a time expression:

Bis morgen habe ich das Buch gelesen. — By tomorrow I'll have read the book.

Recognise Futur II. You do not need to produce it.

werden in a subordinate clause

The conjugated verb goes last in a subordinate clause (one exception, just below), so werden lands after the infinitive:

Ich glaube, dass er morgen kommen wird.

Here too the present tense would be at least as natural: dass er morgen kommt.

When haben or werden governs a pair of infinitives, it hops in front of the pair instead of standing last.

Ich glaube, dass er es bald wird machen können. — I think he'll be able to do it soon.

Ich weiß, dass er das Auto hat reparieren lassen. — I know he had the car repaired.

Not machen können wird, and not reparieren lassen hat. The fronting belongs to those two auxiliaries, though: a finite modal still goes last, even with the same pair of infinitives behind it.

Ich weiß, dass er das Auto reparieren lassen will. — I know he wants to have the car repaired.

This is the double infinitive; the haben version turns up in your reading long before the werden one. The rest of the pattern is in German subordinate clauses.

What to actually memorise

Five distinct forms of werden — werde, wirst, wird, werdet, werden — and one habit: when the sentence already says when and you are reporting a plan, use the present tense. Predictions, promises and the distant future keep werden. That habit alone will do more for how native your German sounds than any amount of Futur I drilling.

Memorise the end-of-clause test too — infinitive means future or assumption, participle means passive, nothing verbal means to become. It settles the collision almost every time; what it hands back to you is the participle that has hardened into an adjective, er wird bekannt.

Not worth memorising: Futur II paradigms, or the future forms of individual verbs, which are never irregular because the infinitive never changes. And do not learn werden as "will". Learn it as the word that carries the future, the passive and to become, then let the end of the clause tell you which one you are in.