Future I
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Future I: ću and the verb in front
Radiću “I will work”, doći će “he will come”, bićemo “we will be”. This is the main future tense of Serbian, Future I (futur I). The way it is built will feel oddly familiar to an English speaker. English makes its future with will, a word that once meant “to want” (you can still hear the old sense in willing and free will). Serbian does exactly the same: it takes the short clitic ću of the verb hteti “to want” and attaches a verb to it. You have already met this ću in passing in the lesson “hteti & moći”; now we build a full tense out of it. (There is also a Future II, budem radio, but it is used almost only after ako “if” and kad “when”; it has its own lesson, “Future II (exact future)”.)
The Serbian future has one signature feature that English lacks: fusion. When the verb stands in front of the clitic, the two grow together into a single word and even change their spelling: raditi + ću → radiću. That gives two equally correct ways of writing the same thought, fused radiću and separate ja ću raditi, plus a third one with da: ja ću da radim.
Every person: ću plus the verb
First the full set. On the left is the fused form (infinitive first), on the right the separate form (with a pronoun as support). The meaning is the same:
The clitics ću, ćeš, će… are the same ones that belong to “want”, but here they no longer mean “I want”; they are a pure marker of the future. The original wish has long since faded into grammar: radiću is not “I want to work”, just “I will work”. Like sam in the perfect, ću is unstressed and cannot open a sentence. Much like English ’ll (I’ll, we’ll), it always needs support in front: either a verb grown onto it (radiću) or a word placed before it (ja ću, sutra ću). Other clitics (se, ti, mu) come after ću: Vratiću se “I’ll be back”, Kad ćeš se vratiti? “When will you be back?”; the lesson “Future word order & spelling” covers this in detail. Notice in the table that “he” and “they” sound the same, radiće, just like hoće “wants, want”.
One future serves both aspects: radiću “I will work, I’ll be working” and uradiću “I’ll get it done”, videću “I will see”, doći ću “I will come”. A bare perfective present (uradim) is no future, even though it looks like “I do” (“The concept of aspect”).
Fusion: raditi + ću = radiću
Here is how the merger is written. When an infinitive in -ti stands before the clitic, the -ti drops and the clitic is written together with the verb: raditi → radi- + ću → radiću. (In speech the t melts into the ć, which is why it is not written.) The result sounds like one word, radiću, roughly “RAH-dee-choo”:
The last row is an important exception: verbs in -ći do not fuse. Doći ću, ići ću, reći ću are written as two words, because they have no -ti to drop. So the fused spelling is only for verbs in -ti, and only when they stand in front of the clitic; after another word you write two words: Sutra ću raditi.
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Future I: ću and the verb in front
The main future (futur I) is built not from “be” but from “want”, just as English will once meant “want”: the clitic ću, ćeš, će, ćemo, ćete, će (the short form of hteti) plus the infinitive, or the equivalent da + present. The sense of wanting is gone; it is a pure future marker. The clitic is unstressed and, like sam in the perfect, takes second place: it needs support in front, either a fused infinitive or a word before it (ja ću, sutra ću).