B1 — intermediateInformation and description

Future plans & intentions

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Future plans: intentions, arrangements and polite excuses

You already have the forms of the future. The lesson “Future I” gave you ću, a clitic (a short unstressed word that cannot open a sentence), and the lesson “Future word order & spelling” put it in second place. But in real life nobody talks about the future in tables of forms: a plan gets announced, arranged, moved and called off, and each of those moves has a ready-made phrase. This lesson teaches no new tense; it teaches you to use what you have the way a Serb does.

Three ways to announce a plan

A Serb can say “I’m working from home tomorrow” in three ways, and they differ in tone: it all depends on how settled the plan is.

Examples

form	example	what the listener hears
future with ću	Sutra ću raditi od kuće.	neutral: always appropriate
present of a schedule	Sutra radim od kuće.	settled, agreed, in the calendar
intention + da	Nameravam da radim od kuće.	only intending to, so far

Voz kreće u pet i deset. The train leaves at ten past five.

Kad stižeš? — Stižem u pola devet. When are you arriving? I’m arriving at half past eight.

English does exactly the same thing: “The train leaves at 5:10” and “I’m flying to Belgrade on Monday” use a present tense for a future that is fixed. In Serbian, too, the present sounds more certain than the future: the ticket is bought, the meeting is in the diary. There is one condition: a time marker or a shared context must be there, otherwise the sentence is heard as “right now”. The present lives in timetables, firm arrangements (Vidimo se u šest. “See you at six.”) and questions about someone else’s plans (Šta radiš večeras? “What are you doing tonight?”). Where nothing is settled, only the future will do: “It’ll be fine” is Biće dobro, and nothing else.

Two things to watch. The future always takes ću, and all three ways of writing it are correct: radiću, ja ću raditi and ja ću da radim. And a plan in the present needs an imperfective verb: Sutra putujem “I’m travelling tomorrow”, Dolazim u osam “I’m coming at eight”. A perfective present such as dođem or stignem does not usually stand on its own as a future: “I’ll come tomorrow” is Sutra ću doći or Sutra dolazim (lesson “Future I”). It does appear after možda, ako, kad and da, as you will see below.

Deeper sources

Prezent za buduće radnje: what the grammars say

Serbian grammatical tradition distinguishes two uses of the present tense (prezent in Serbian). In the indicative, or direct, use it names what is happening at the moment of speaking. In the relative use the reference point shifts, and the same form serves either the past (the narrative present from the lesson “Narrating past events”: Ulazim ja, kad ono…) or the future (Sutra putujem “I’m travelling tomorrow”). This is how, for example, the Gramatika srpskoga jezika by the Serbian linguists Živojin Stanojčić and Ljubomir Popović sets it out: the future meaning of the present is not a liberty of casual speech but a relative use of the form that the grammar describes. So Sutra putujem is just as standard as Sutra ću putovati, just as English “I’m leaving tomorrow” is.

When exactly: future time markers

A plan starts with the answer to “when?”.

Examples

Serbian	English
sutra, prekosutra, večeras, sutra ujutru	tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, this evening (tonight), tomorrow morning
za sat vremena, za dva dana, za nedelju dana	in an hour, in two days, in a week
sledeće nedelje, sledećeg meseca, idućeg leta	next week, next month, next summer
u ponedeljak, u petak uveče, za vikend	on Monday, on Friday evening, at the weekend
početkom meseca, krajem godine	at the beginning of the month, at the end of the year
do petka, do kraja meseca	by Friday, by the end of the month
uskoro, jednog dana, kad-tad	soon, one day, sooner or later

Krajem meseca se selimo u novi stan. We’re moving into a new flat at the end of the month.

Do petka moram da završim izveštaj. I have to finish the report by Friday.

One pair splits time in two: pre nedelju dana “a week ago” (lesson “Narrating past events”) and za nedelju dana “in a week”: the same phrase, different prepositions. The days mirror each other the same way: prekjuče “the day before yesterday” and prekosutra “the day after tomorrow”.

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

Future plans

Three ways to announce a plan

Examples

form	example	meaning
future	Sutra ću raditi.	neutral, always fits
present	Sutra radim.	settled, in the calendar
intention + da	Nameravam da radim.	only intending

Present (imperfective): timetables, fixed plans. Voz kreće u pet. Vidimo se u šest. “I’ll come” is doći ću, not a bare dođem. Predictions, promises: future only: Biće dobro.

Time markers

Intention: da + present

Examples

Serbian	English
Nameravam da…, Imam nameru da…	I intend to (2nd: more formal)
Planiram da…, U planu mi je da…	I’m planning to
Razmišljam da…, Spremam se da…	I’m thinking of / getting ready to
Odlučio sam da…, Hoću da…	I’ve decided to / I want to
Hteo bih da…, Voleo bih da…	I’d like to

Planiram otići is bookish. Mislim da krenem u petak. “thinking of leaving” (intention) vs Mislim da će padati kiša. “I think it’ll rain” (opinion).

Certainty and caveats

Examples

Serbian	English
Sigurno ću doći. Svakako dolazim.	I’ll definitely come. For sure.
Verovatno ću stići do osam.	I’ll probably make it by eight.
Valjda ću uspeti. Možda dođem.	I suppose I’ll manage. I might come.
Teško da ću stići. Sigurno neću moći.	I’m unlikely to make it. I definitely can’t.

Caveats: ako stignem, ako sve bude u redu, ako ne iskrsne nešto, nadam se da ću…, računam da…, videćemo, javiću ti, ne obećavam ništa. After ako, kad: bude or a perfective present (Kad završim, javiću ti); ako budem stigao = future II.

Arranging

Moving, cancelling, booking

Examples

Serbian	English
pomeriti	move to another time
odložiti	postpone, put off
otkazati	cancel completely
iskrsnuti, ne stizati	come up (a hitch), not have time

Izvini, moram da otkažem, iskrsnulo mi je nešto hitno.

Booking: Hteo bih da zakažem termin. Imate li slobodan termin u četvrtak? U koliko sati vam odgovara? → Zakazano.