Expressions of promises in Spanish are mainly used by politicians. They are a way of gaining the trust of their supporters. In Spain, one of the politicians who has gone down in history is Adolfo Suárez. He became the first Prime Minister of democracy in 1976. He resigned from office in 1981 after a coup d’état. But if we Spanish people have him in our memory, it is because of a famous phrase he pronounced in one of his speeches: “Puedo prometer y prometo que…” (I can promise and I promise that…”).

Today we are going to learn some of the most used expressions of promises in Spanish.

Expressions of promises in Spanish: the future

When we promise something, we are pretty sure that the action is going to happen. Or, at least, we want to offer that assurance to the listener so that he or she trusts our word. Because of this, we do not use the subjunctive (even though they are non-factual statements) but the future imperfect indicative.

Here you have some of the most used expressions of promises in Spanish:

  • Te prometo que estudiaré más (I promise I’ll study more).
  • Te juro que te ayudaré (I swear I’ll help you).
  • Te doy mi palabra de que estaremos siempre juntos (I give you my word we’ll always be toguether).
  • Os aseguro que tendremos éxito (I assure you we’ll succeed).
  • Señor, le garantizo que no volveré a hacerlo. (Sir, I guarantee I won’t do it again).

 

 

Actually, the meaning of promise is in the future tense itself. The verbs prometer, jurar, dar la palabra, asegurar or garantizar are simply reinforcers. In fact, we could eliminate them:

Te prometo que no volverá a pasar = No volverá a pasar.

As we said at the beginning, promises are typical of politicians. Most of them are not kept, but there is always an exception that fulfills the rule.

From Spanishviaskype.com, we hope that you will be able to practice the expressions of promises in Spanish. To do so, you simply have to book a class with our teachers and start saying your promises. Do you promise us that you will do it?

To finish, here you have a video with the speech in which Adolfo Suárez pronounced his famous promises.