Future in the Past: -ecekti/-acaktı ("Was Going To")
Turkish has a single ending for describing a plan you had at some point in the past — not what you did, but what you were going to do. English builds this with “was/were going to,” a whole phrase; Turkish glues it onto the verb as one suffix, -ecekti/-acaktı.
What this ending does
-ecekti/-acaktı reports a plan, intention, or expectation that existed at some past moment, without committing to whether it actually happened:
- Gelecekti. — He/she was going to come.
- Yağmur yağacaktı. — It was going to rain.
- Ona yardım edecektim. — I was going to help him/her.
It sits between plain past tense (which reports what did happen) and a future plan that’s still open (which hasn’t been decided yet) — this ending is specifically for a plan viewed from the past, looking forward from that earlier point in time.
Forming it
The ending is built in two layers: the future suffix -(y)ecek/-(y)acak you already know, plus the past-tense copula -ti/-tı (the same element that turns, say, “is” into “was” elsewhere in Turkish), plus a personal ending:
| Person | Front-vowel stems | Back-vowel stems |
|---|---|---|
| ben (I) | -(y)ecektim | -(y)acaktım |
| sen (you) | -(y)ecektin | -(y)acaktın |
| o (he/she/it) | -(y)ecekti | -(y)acaktı |
| biz (we) | -(y)ecektik | -(y)acaktık |
| siz (you, pl./formal) | -(y)ecektiniz | -(y)acaktınız |
| onlar (they) | -(y)eceklerdi | -(y)acaklardı |
For example: gel- (come, front vowel) gives gelecektim (I was going to come); bak- (look, back vowel) gives bakacaktım (I was going to look).
The consonant is always -t-, never -d-. The plain simple past (-di/-dı/-du/-dü and their -ti/-tı/-tu/-tü counterparts) has a full four-way alternation depending on the sound right before it. This ending doesn’t need that whole table: the future suffix -ecek/-acak always ends in the voiceless consonant k, and Turkish consonant harmony always pairs a voiceless sound with another voiceless sound next to it — so the past-copula element here is locked to voiceless -ti/-tı, and only the front/back vowel choice ever changes.
Negation and questions
Negation adds the regular negative suffix -me/-ma to the verb stem, right before the future ending, exactly as it does for the plain future tense:
- Git-me-yecek-ti. → Gitmeyecekti. — He/she was not going to go.
- Gel-me-yecek-tim. → Gelmeyecektim. — I was not going to come.
Questions add the separate particle mı/mi/mu/mü right after the future-tense part and before the personal/copula ending — the same slot it occupies in the plain future tense’s own questions — where it contracts with the copula into miydi/mıydı (etc.):
- Gidecek miydi? — Was he/she going to go?
- Gelecek miydin? — Were you going to come?
How it differs from plain past and from the conditional
Plain simple past (-di) reports a fact: the event happened. Gitti means “he/she went” — done, confirmed. Gidecekti means “he/she was going to go” — a plan or expectation from some past moment, with the actual outcome left open. Turkish doesn’t force -ecekti to mean the plan fell through, but it very often shows up exactly in contexts where it did — especially paired with ama (“but”) or in a “was just about to … when …” construction:
- Tam çıkacaktım ki telefon çaldı. — I was just about to leave when the phone rang.
- Gelecekti ama hastalandı. — He/she was going to come, but got sick.
The conditional (-se/-sa) is a completely different mood, not a past tense at all. -se/-sa attaches straight to the verb root to build “if” clauses — gitse (“if he/she goes/were to go”) — and doesn’t by itself say anything about past plans. Don’t let the shared “hypothetical-sounding” feel of English “would have gone” tempt you into reaching for -se/-sa when what you actually mean is a past plan; that job belongs to -ecekti/-acaktı.
Examples
- Bu akşam sinemaya gidecektik ama yağmur yağdı. — We were going to go to the cinema tonight, but it rained.
- Sana haber verecektim, unuttum. — I was going to let you know, I forgot.
- O da bize katılacaktı. — He/she was going to join us too.
- Tam yemeği yiyecektim ki telefon çaldı. — I was just about to eat when the phone rang.
- Onlar erken gelecekler miydi? — Were they going to come early?
- Bu projeyi ben bitirecektim, sonra plan değişti. — I was going to finish this project, then the plan changed.
Try it yourself
Babi, Speafy’s AI tutor, will have you narrate plans that didn’t quite go as expected — “I was going to…, but…” — until -ecekti/-acaktı comes out as naturally as plain past tense, and Speafy’s FSRS-based flashcards keep the full person paradigm, and its fixed -t- consonant, from blurring back into the plain past’s four-way pattern.
Frequently asked questions
How do I say "I was going to go" in Turkish?
Gidecektim - the future stem gidecek- (from gitmek, "to go") plus the past-copula ending -tim, literally "I was going to go." It describes a plan you had at some point in the past, without necessarily saying whether you actually went.
What's the difference between gitti and gidecekti in Turkish?
Gitti ("he/she went") reports something that actually happened, using the plain simple past. Gidecekti ("he/she was going to go") reports a plan or expectation held at some past moment - whether it was carried out is left for the surrounding context to say.
Why is it always -ecekti/-acaktı and never -ecekdi or -ecekdı?
Because the future suffix -ecek/-acak always ends in the voiceless consonant k, Turkish consonant harmony forces the following past-copula ending to be the voiceless t, giving -ecekti/-acaktı - the d-variant used after other sounds in the plain simple past never applies here.
