Le futur proche: I'm gonna, I'm gonna!

So, you've got the present and the past under your belt, but there are always more tenses to learn! Being able to talk about the future is a useful skill, especially if you are somebody who likes to plan and prepare.

French has a number of different ways to talk about the future, and today we are going to look at one called futur proche.

Futur proche (meaning 'near future tense') is used to talk about events that are relatively certain and will happen in the near future. It often acts like the English "to be going to" or "gonna" (for any Aussies reading this).

To assemble your words, you will need:

A subject  + the present form of aller (to go) + the infinitive form of the verb you want to talk about (infinitve forms have an -ir,-re, or -er ending, and may also be followed by a longer phrase)

Basically, take one of the following

je vais
tu vas
il/elle/on va
nous allons
vous allez
ils/elles vont

Then add in what is going to happen. Have a look at the following examples, where I've underlined the verb aller (to go) and the infinitive verb alongside it:

Je vais chanter!  I'm going to sing!

Tu vas dancer.  You're going to dance.

Elle va tomber!  She's going to fall!

Nous allons préparer le déjeuner.  We're going to make lunch.

Vous allez laver la vaisselle. You're going to wash the dishes.

Ils vont venir avec vous. They're going to come with you.

Notice that in English, we have 'to be' as well as 'to go'. For example, we say 'I am going to do it'. French jumps straight to aller, which is why you need to change the form to match each pronoun.
Another difference is that in English, infinitive tense isn't as obvious. It's just present form (eg. do) with the word 'to' in front of it, as in 'I am going to do it'. This can make it a bit difficult to remember to use the infinitive, but it will become more familiar as you learn more French.

As always, the more practice you do, the better you'll get.

Je vais partir... donc, à la prochaine!