Latin · Chapter 6 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Future, pluperfect and future perfect
Dicam, dixeram, dixero. The rest of the indicative: two tenses English has and one it fakes with will have. Regular, learnable, and built on stems you already know.
The short version
dicit and dicet are one letter apart
The Latin future has two formations and the conjugation decides which. First and second take -bo, -bis, -bit: amabo, habebo. Third and fourth take -am, -es, -et: dicam, dices, dicet. That second set is where marks go missing, because dicit is he says and dicet is he will say. The first set has its own trap at the other end of the tense line: amabit is he will love, amabat is he was loving.
dicit, dicet
Latin says when you will have come, and means it
The pluperfect is the perfect stem plus the imperfect of sum: dixeram, I had said. The future perfect is the same stem plus the future of sum, with one deviation, -erint in the third plural: dixero, dixeris, dixerit. Then Latin uses that tense with a precision English has given up on. Cum veneris, dicam is when you come, I will tell you, but the Latin literally says when you will have come, because the arriving finishes before the telling starts.
Cum veneris, dicam.
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