Turkish forms the future tense with one suffix in two shapes — -acak after back vowels, -ecek after front vowels — added to the verb stem before the personal ending. A buffer -y- appears after a vowel, and the final k softens to ğ in geleceğim and geleceğiz. Use it for planned or predicted events, not general habits.
Published 30 September 2026
The Turkish future tense is one of the friendliest things in the language. It is built from a single suffix that comes in just two shapes, it attaches to the verb in a completely predictable way, and only two verbs in the whole language behave irregularly. Once you can say geleceğim — "I will come" — you can build the future of almost any verb you meet.
Turkish is an agglutinating language, which means it builds words by gluing meaningful endings onto a stem in a fixed order. The future is just one of those endings. If you have already met the present tense and the two past tenses, this one will feel like more of the same machinery.
The future suffix is -acak or -ecek. Which one you use depends on the last vowel of the stem, following vowel harmony — the rule that makes an ending echo the vowel before it. This is the simpler, twofold kind of harmony: only two choices, not four.
| Last vowel of the stem | Suffix | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| a, ı, o, u (back vowels) | -acak | yapacak (yap-) | will do / make |
| e, i, ö, ü (front vowels) | -ecek | gelecek (gel-) | will come |
A back vowel is one made towards the back of the mouth (a, ı, o, u); a front vowel is made towards the front (e, i, ö, ü). That single distinction is all you need to pick the right shape. Gel- ends in e, so it takes -ecek: gelecek. Yap- ends in a, so it takes -acak: yapacak.
After the future suffix comes the personal ending that says who the subject is. Here is the whole set, shown for a front-vowel verb (gelmek, to come) and a back-vowel verb (yapmak, to do).
| Person | gelmek → will come | yapmak → will do |
|---|---|---|
| I | geleceğim | yapacağım |
| you | geleceksin | yapacaksın |
| he / she / it | gelecek | yapacak |
| we | geleceğiz | yapacağız |
| you (plural / polite) | geleceksiniz | yapacaksınız |
| they | gelecekler | yapacaklar |
Notice that the third person — "he / she / it" — is the bare suffix with nothing added: gelecek, yapacak. That is the form you will see and hear most often, and it is the one to learn first.
Look again at the "I" and "we" rows. The k at the end of gelecek has turned into ğ: geleceğim, geleceğiz. This is consonant softening — a regular sound change where a final k becomes the soft ğ when a vowel-initial ending is stuck onto it. (The letter ğ, the "soft g", is barely pronounced; it mostly just lengthens the vowel before it.)
The key thing is that softening only happens when the ending starts with a vowel:
So the softening is not a special future-tense quirk; it is the same rule that turns renk (colour) into rengi (its colour). Once you expect it, the "I" and "we" forms stop looking irregular.
If the verb stem ends in a vowel, Turkish slips in a buffer consonant -y- so that two vowels never collide. A buffer consonant is a small filler sound that keeps a word pronounceable.
| Verb | Stem | Future (3rd person) | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| okumak | oku- | okuyacak | will read |
| beklemek | bekle- | bekleyecek | will wait |
So oku- + -acak becomes okuyacak, and bekle- + -ecek becomes bekleyecek. The personal endings then attach exactly as before: okuyacağım (I will read), bekleyeceğiz (we will wait).
The only real exceptions. Two very common verbs, yemek (to eat) and demek (to say), narrow their stem vowel from e to i before the buffer: ye- becomes yiy- and de- becomes diy-. So "I will eat" is yiyeceğim and "I will say" is diyeceğim, not yeyeceğim. These two are the exceptions that prove how regular everything else is.
To make the future negative, add the negative marker -ma / -me to the stem first, then the future suffix. Because -ma / -me ends in a vowel, the buffer -y- shows up again.
| Person | Negative (gelmek) | English |
|---|---|---|
| I | gelmeyeceğim | I won't come |
| you | gelmeyeceksin | you won't come |
| he / she / it | gelmeyecek | he won't come |
| we | gelmeyeceğiz | we won't come |
| you (plural / polite) | gelmeyeceksiniz | you won't come |
| they | gelmeyecekler | they won't come |
For a back-vowel verb the pieces harmonise the other way: yapmayacağım (I won't do it), yapmayacak (he won't do it).
In everyday speech you will hear the future shrink: geleceğim often comes out as "gelicem", and -acak can sound like "-ıcak". That is casual pronunciation, not spelling. In writing — messages, exams, anything you want to look correct — keep the full forms: geleceğim, yapacak, gelmeyeceğiz. Learn the written form first and let the spoken shortcut come later; it is much easier to relax a form you know than to guess the full one back from the shortcut.
To turn a future statement into a yes/no question, add the question particle mı, which is written as a separate word and harmonises four ways (mı, mi, mu, mü). After gelecek the last vowel is e, so it becomes mi:
Gelecek misin? — Will you come?
Yarın yağmur yağacak mı? — Will it rain tomorrow?
As with other tenses, the personal ending hops onto the particle for "I", "we", "you" and "you plural": Gelecek miyim? (Shall I come?), Gelecek miyiz? (Shall we come?). The full behaviour is covered in the guide to the question particle mı.
Turkish has a second "non-past" tense, the aorist (in Turkish, geniş zaman, the "broad tense"), formed with -r / -er / -ir. Beginners sometimes mix it up with the future, but they do different jobs. The aorist is for general truths, habits, and willingness or offers. The future is for a specific event you are planning or predicting.
| Turkish | Tense | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Sana yardım ederim. | aorist | I'll help you. (I'm willing / that's how I am) |
| Sana yardım edeceğim. | future | I'm going to help you. (I've decided; it's the plan) |
| Her sabah kahve içerim. | aorist | I drink coffee every morning. (habit) |
| Yarın kahve içeceğim. | future | I'll have a coffee tomorrow. (this specific plan) |
A useful rule of thumb: if you could put "I promise" or "the plan is" in front of the English, reach for the future -acak / -ecek. If you mean "generally" or "I'm the kind of person who", that is the aorist's territory.
Put each verb into the future for the person shown. Answers below.
Answers: (1) geleceğim — front-vowel stem, and the k softens before -im. (2) yapacağız — back-vowel stem, k softens before -ız. (3) okuyacak — vowel-final stem takes the buffer -y-; third person adds nothing, so the k stays. (4) gelmeyeceğim — negative -me plus the buffer -y-, then the softened -eceğim. (5) Bekleyecek misin? — buffer -y- after bekle-, then the separate particle with the ending on it.
One suffix in two shapes: -acak after back vowels, -ecek after front vowels. A buffer -y- after a vowel, a k that softens to ğ before -im and -iz, and only ye- and de- to watch out for. Use it for what you plan or predict, not for what you generally do.
The future rounds out the core tenses: learn it alongside the present and the two pasts, and it will cover most of what you need to say when. The endings all obey vowel harmony and stack in the fixed order described in how Turkish builds words. If you are just starting out, begin with the beginner's roadmap.
Turkish is coming to Gora, where tenses like the future are taught through real situations — the plans, promises and predictions you actually make — rather than as tables to memorise. See what is coming and join the launch list.