Ir + infinitive for plans and near future

Vou fazer gives you a common way to talk about plans, predictions and promises, near or distant. The auxiliary carries person agreement and the main verb stays in the infinitive. Learn it alongside lexical ir and other future expressions: the present can also describe a future event, and a preposition alone does not settle the meaning.

Ir for movement and as a future auxiliary

Ir can mean going somewhere or work as an auxiliary in a future construction. Compare these examples:

In Vou ao mercado, ir describes going somewhere; the trip can still be in the future. In Vou comprar pão, ir + infinitive expresses a future event. Do not add a linking a in this future construction: ✗ vou a comprar. Pronouns or adverbs can occur between the verbs.

Vou buscar o pão (I’m going to fetch the bread) can describe a plan, movement to fetch it, or both. Context decides; the phrase does not itself specify a trip to a bakery.

Plans

• "Vou viajar para o Nordeste em janeiro." (I'm going to travel to the Northeast in January.)

• "A gente vai jantar fora hoje." (We're going out for dinner tonight.)

• "Meus pais vão mudar de casa." (My parents are going to move house.)

• "Você vai estudar para a prova?" (Are you going to study for the test?)

Going somewhere, or doing something later

• "Vou ao dentista amanhã de manhã." (I'm going to the dentist tomorrow morning.)

• "Vou comprar pão na padaria." (I'm going to buy bread at the bakery.)

• "Ela vai para o trabalho de ônibus." (She goes to work by bus.)

• "Ela vai trabalhar em casa amanhã." (She's going to work from home tomorrow.)

Vamos is also "let's"

Vamos comer? can be a suggestion (Shall we eat?) or a question about a plan; Vamos embora. means “Let’s go”. Intonation and context distinguish the readings: Vamos comer às oito can also propose a plan. See the imperative topic for this use.

Standard agreement: a gente vai

A gente means “we” but takes the third-person singular in standard agreement: A gente vai chegar às oito. (We’re going to arrive at eight.) Adding an infinitive does not change that. ✗ A gente vamos chegar does not follow this standard agreement.

Vou querer: how to order

Vou querer o prato do dia. (I’ll have the dish of the day.) is a common way to order at a counter or a table. Quero is also used; tone and context affect how polite either sounds. You may hear Vai querer mais alguma coisa? in reply.

A pronoun can go between the verbs

In Vou te ligar mais tarde. (I’ll call you later.), te is before the infinitive and between vou and ligar, a common Brazilian placement. Other placements are possible, such as Vou ligar-te mais tarde; syntax and register matter. See the object-pronoun topic in Lesson 5.

A song about Brazil’s democratic transition uses this construction. Vai Passar, written by Chico Buarque with Francis Hime and released in 1984, uses ir + infinitive in a song about dictatorship, resistance and hope. It became a musical symbol of the transition to civilian government and the Nova República. Memorial da Democracia records that it accompanied the New Year’s Eve celebration at Tancredo Neves’ apartment in Rio on 31 December 1984. Sources: chicobuarque.com.br, Memorial da Democracia

Vou ir has an auxiliary and a main verb. In Gramatigalhas, José Maria da Costa argues that this is grammatically valid, like há de haver, tinha tido and vinha vindo. Adriana Gibbon’s study examined 743 future-reference instances from 36 Florianópolis interviews, including ir + infinitive, the present and the synthetic future. It proposes a grammaticalization path for ir; younger and middle-aged speakers together used the periphrasis more often than the oldest group. These results describe that sample, not a universal Brazilian rate or a completed loss of movement meaning. Sources: Migalhas — Gramatigalhas, Círculo Fluminense de Estudos Filológicos — Adriana Gibbon