"No Future in Time"

Using the future in Italian

In English, the future tense cannot be used with certain time clauses. In other words, there are “no future in time clauses.”

An example may help:

When the packages arrives, I will sign for it.

In English, when your clause begins with:

• When

• While

• Before

• After

• By the time

• As soon as

• If

• Unless

…the present tense always follows (as in our example above).

In Italian, we…