Money and shopping — French B1/B2

The futur simple, the futur antérieur and time conjunctions (quand, dès que, une fois que)

Le futur simple, le futur antérieur et les conjonctions de temps

FUTUR SIMPLE is built on the infinitive plus the present-tense endings of avoir: -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont (je parlerai, tu finiras, il partira). Verbs in -re drop the final -e: prendre → je prendrai, vendre → je vendrai. The good news for an English speaker is that the meaning maps almost one-to-one onto "will + verb", and that the futur proche (aller + infinitive) matches "going to" just as neatly. The bad news is that French marks the future with an ending rather than an auxiliary, so there is a stem to learn: the irregular stems in the table below have to be memorised, and verbs of the acheter / lever / prélever / appeler type keep their è or their doubled consonant right through the future (j'achèterai, je prélèverai, j'appellerai), unlike the present, where only some persons change. Note also that French has no aspectual pair ("I will be paying" vs "I will pay"): one futur simple covers both, and anything more precise comes from the context, an adverb, or the futur antérieur.

FUTUR ANTÉRIEUR = futur simple of avoir or être + past participle: j'aurai payé, nous serons partis, elle se sera trompée. This is the future perfect, and in its main use it behaves exactly like English "will have paid": a future action completed before another future action — "Je te rembourserai quand j'aurai touché mon salaire" (salary first, repayment second). Two things have no English counterpart. First, the choice of auxiliary (être with verbs of movement and all reflexives) and the agreement of the participle with a preceding direct object: la facture que j'aurai reçue. English participles never agree with anything, so this is pure extra work and a reliable source of lost marks. Second, French uses the futur antérieur for a SUPPOSITION about the past: "Il aura oublié de résilier son abonnement" does not mean "he will have forgotten" but "he must have forgotten / he's probably forgotten". English reaches for "must have" here; recognise the French pattern in the dialogue and in exercise 8 rather than trying to translate it word for word.

TIME CONJUNCTIONS — this is where anglophones lose most points. After quand, lorsque, dès que, aussitôt que, une fois que, après que, tant que, à mesure que, if the sentence is about the future, French REQUIRES a future tense (futur simple or futur antérieur). English does the opposite and puts a present tense there: "as soon as I get my salary, I'll pay you back". Transferring that habit produces the classic error *"Dès que je reçois mon salaire, je te rembourserai"; the correct sentence is "Dès que j'aurai reçu mon salaire, je te rembourserai". Train yourself to hear "as soon as I HAVE received" in your head — that English form points at the right French tense. Two riders. Après que, whatever you hear in the street, takes the indicative ("après que le technicien sera passé"), whereas avant que, jusqu'à ce que and en attendant que take the subjunctive and never a future tense ("avant que le délai (ne) soit écoulé"). And conditional si is the one place where French agrees with English: no future after si — "Si tu es à découvert, la banque prélèvera des frais", exactly like "if you are overdrawn…".

CHOOSING between futur simple and futur antérieur after quand / dès que / une fois que: ask whether the subordinate action has to FINISH before the main one starts. If it does, use the futur antérieur — "Dès que le technicien aura établi son diagnostic, nous vous rappellerons". If the two situations are simultaneous, or the subordinate clause describes a state, the futur simple is enough — "Vous recevrez un mail dès que le dossier sera enregistré", "Quand tu seras à la banque, demande un RIB". Learn separately the pattern tant que + ne… pas + futur antérieur, which is how French says English "until": "Tant que je n'aurai pas été remboursée, je ne rendrai pas l'appareil" = "Until I've been refunded, I'm not giving the appliance back". Note that a literal *jusqu'à ce que here would force the subjunctive and sound wrong. In casual speech the futur proche largely replaces the futur simple for immediate plans, but in writing — a complaint, a contract, an email to your bank — and after time conjunctions, the futur simple and futur antérieur are what is used and what examiners expect.

REGISTER AND FALSE FRIENDS. Watch the pronouns in the dialogue: Sylvie and the adviser use vous to each other (strangers in a commercial setting — vous is obligatory and stays obligatory for the whole exchange), while Karim uses tu to Sylvie because they are friends. English has no such switch, so the safe rule is: use vous with anyone you are not on first-name terms with, and let the French person offer "on peut se tutoyer" first. Then the traps this unit is stuffed with. Un délai is a deadline or a timeframe, NOT a delay (that is un retard) — "sous quel délai ?" means "within what timeframe?". Prévenir means to warn or notify, not to prevent (empêcher). Une réclamation is a complaint or claim, nothing to do with reclamation. Un appareil is a device or appliance, not apparel. Une laverie is a launderette, not a lavatory. Attendre is to wait for, not to attend, and demander is to ask, not to demand (which would be exiger). Régler une facture is to settle a bill, not to regulate anything; toucher son salaire is to receive it; un avoir is a credit note, not an asset here; un litige is a dispute, not necessarily litigation. On the credit side, French and English genuinely align on the whole Latinate layer of this unit — garantie, procédure, diagnostic, conformité, médiateur, inflation, remboursement — and on the impersonal on, which works like English "you / one / we": "quand on connaît ses droits, on ne se fait pas avoir". Exploit that shortcut; it is real.