Unit 4 - Simple sentences

4.7 - The future imperfective

The final example on page 4.6 showed how the infinitive is used to form the future imperfective, that is “I shall be doing” or "I am going to do” (explanation of the term “imperfective” will come later).

To understand how the future imperfective works you need to identify:

subject future of "to be" infinitive  
я буду працювати I shall go to work / I am going to work
ти будеш працювати you shall go to work / you are going to work
він буде працювати he shall go to work / he is going to work
вона буде працювати she shall go to work / she is going to work
воно буде працювати it shall go to work / it is going to work
ми будемо працювати we shall go to work / we are going to work
ви будете працювати you shall go to work / you are going to work
вони будуть працювати they shall go to work / they are going to work

As with all verbs in Ukrainian, the endings of the future of the verb “to be” change according to who is doing the action. The same principle exists in English, but there are fewer endings (only three: am, is, are – see the last column in the chart above).

The endings are important and need to be learnt, as the subject, when it is a pronoun, is often omitted, and it is the verb ending which tells us who is doing the action. To practise the endings do Exercise 4.7A.

There is another way of expressing the future imperfective in Ukrainian, and it has more or less the same meaning as the form you’ve already met. If you’ve learnt the above endings (-у, -еш, -е, -емо, -ете, -уть), you will have no difficulty recognising it in a text. It consists of:

subject verb
я працювати - м - у
ти працювати - м - еш
він / вона / воно
(same ending)		 працювати - м - е
ми працювати - м - емо
ви працювати - м - ете
вони працювати - м - уть

Now go to the next page for a reading text in the future.