Future Participle: -ecek/-acak ("that will/is going to [verb]")
Two earlier lessons gave relative clauses in Turkish their own dedicated suffixes: -en/-an when the described noun is the subject, -dik plus a possessive when it isn’t. The future doesn’t get a third brand-new suffix at all - it just borrows the future tense’s own -ecek/-acak, unchanged.
What this participle does
The future participle describes a noun by an action that hasn’t happened yet, and it splits into the same two roles as the other participles, depending on whether the described noun is the subject of that future action or not:
- Yarın buraya gelecek misafirleri bekliyoruz. — We’re waiting for the guests who will come here tomorrow. (misafirleri, “guests,” is who will do the coming - the subject role, bare suffix, no possessive)
- Yarın sana göstereceğim resmi çok beğeneceksin. — You’ll really like the picture (that) I’ll show you tomorrow. (resim, “picture,” is what will get shown - not the subject, so göstereceğim carries a possessive ending naming “I” as the one who will show it)
In the first sentence, gelecek is identical to the bare third-person future-tense form “he/she/it will come.” In the second, göstereceğim is identical to the ordinary sentence Göstereceğim. (“I will show [it].”). Nothing new is built here - the lesson is really about recognizing the same spelling doing a second job.
Forming it
When the described noun is the subject, the bare -ecek/-acak suffix attaches straight to the stem with no possessive at all, exactly like -en/-an but pointing at the future instead of a general or ongoing action:
| Last vowel of the stem | Suffix (subject-type, invariant) |
|---|---|
| a, ı, o, u (back) | -acak |
| e, i, ö, ü (front) | -ecek |
A vowel-final stem still takes the same buffer -y- the future tense already uses: oku- (read) + -(y)acak → okuyacak (“the one who will read”). This form never changes for person or number - gelecek adam (“the man who will come”) and gelecek adamlar (“the men who will come”) share the exact same participle.
When the described noun is not the subject, a possessive ending attaches after the suffix to name who will actually perform the action - and because these are the exact same personal endings the future tense already uses, the resulting word is identical to that person’s ordinary future-tense sentence form:
| Person (who will do the action) | oku- (to read) | gel- (to come) |
|---|---|---|
| ben (I) | okuyacağım | geleceğim |
| sen (you) | okuyacağın | geleceğin |
| o (he/she/it) | okuyacağı | geleceği |
| biz (we) | okuyacağımız | geleceğimiz |
| siz (you, pl./formal) | okuyacağınız | geleceğiniz |
| onlar (they) | okuyacakları | gelecekleri |
Every row but the last shows the familiar k→ğ softening, because every ending except onlar’s starts with a vowel. Okuyacağım is simply the word “I will read” - as a finished sentence on its own, or as a modifier right before a noun like kitap (“book”).
Exceptions worth knowing
The written word alone can’t tell you which of the two jobs it’s doing - position does. Geleceğim sitting at the end of a sentence is a complete predicate, “I will come.” The identical geleceğim sitting right before a noun, as in geleceğim gün (“the day I will come”), is a participle describing that noun instead. There’s no spelling difference to flag; only where the word sits in the sentence tells you.
The third-person-plural possessive never softens its k, same as the other possessive-marked participle. Gelecekleri, not geleceğleri - because -leri/-ları starts with the consonant l, so the vowel-triggered softening simply doesn’t apply there, exactly as it doesn’t for -dik.
Irregular stems shift exactly the way they do in the plain future tense, because nothing about this suffix has changed. Gitmek (“to go”) still becomes gid- before the vowel-initial suffix: gidecek tren (“the train that will leave”), gideceğim yer (“the place I will go”), never gitecek/giteceğim.
Negation still inserts -mayacak/-meyecek as its own fused unit, buffer -y- and all. Bu yıl mezun olmayacak öğrenciler ek sınava girecek. — The students who won’t graduate this year will take an extra exam. (subject-type, negative)
Examples
- Yarın buraya gelecek misafirleri bekliyoruz. — We’re waiting for the guests who will come here tomorrow.
- Bu yıl mezun olmayacak öğrenciler ek sınava girecek. — The students who won’t graduate this year will take an extra exam.
- Önümüzdeki ay açılacak mağazaya çok meraklıyım. — I’m very curious about the store that will open next month.
- Yarın sana göstereceğim resmi çok beğeneceksin. — You’ll really like the picture (that) I’ll show you tomorrow.
- Senin alacağın hediyeyi ben de görmek istiyorum. — I also want to see the gift (that) you’re going to buy.
- Çocukların okuyacakları kitapları öğretmen seçti. — The teacher chose the books (that) the children will read.
Try it yourself
Babi, Speafy’s AI tutor, will have you build both the subject-type and object-type version of the same sentence back to back until it’s automatic which role calls for a bare participle and which calls for a possessive ending, and Speafy’s FSRS-based flashcards keep this suffix’s double life - ordinary future tense in one position, participle in another - distinct in memory instead of letting the two uses blur together.
Frequently asked questions
How do I say "the book I will read" in Turkish?
Okuyacağım kitap. Oku- ("to read") takes the future suffix -(y)acak plus the first-person possessive -ım, giving okuyacağım - and that exact word already means "I will read" as an ordinary sentence. Placed before kitap ("book"), the same spelling now means "(that) I will read," describing the book instead of standing alone as a predicate.
What's the difference between the future participle and the -dik participle in Turkish?
Both attach a possessive ending to mark who performs the action when the described noun isn't the subject - gördüğüm ev ("the house I saw," with -dik) versus göreceğim ev ("the house I will see," with -ecek). The forms themselves are different: -dik has its own unique participle shape, while the future participle is spelled exactly like the plain future-tense verb form for that person.
Does the future participle change depending on who's doing the action, like "gelecek misafir" versus "gelecek misafirler"?
No - when the described noun is the one doing the action (the subject), the bare participle gelecek never changes no matter how many people are coming: gelecek misafir ("the guest who will come") and gelecek misafirler ("the guests who will come") use the identical word gelecek. Only the noun itself takes the plural; the participle only adds a possessive ending when the described noun is NOT the subject.
