Futuro Próximo e Verbos Reflexivos

@stephencanthony I’ll explain this step by step for you and everyone else :slight_smile:

So, this is in the simple future tense (future indicative). The third-person plural conjugation of fazer in that tense is farão. We then need to add a direct object pronoun to this: -o.

For the future indicative tense, the grammar rule is that direct object pronouns must be placed mesoclitically, in the middle of the verb (see The Position of Clitics). So we get farão + o = far-o-ão.

Another grammar rule states that when the first part of the verb ends in a consonant, we have to drop the consonant and change the object pronoun from -o to -lo (see Third Person Clitic Pronouns). So, we go from far-o-ão to fa-lo-ão.

The final step is adding an acute accent on the first A, which is stressed. And that’s how we end up with fá-lo-ão. As you see, this all comes from just one word, the future third-person plural conjugation.

Nowadays, this sounds quite formal to us, so we most often express the future using the auxiliary verb ir (see Discussing the Future in Portuguese). If we used it here, instead of farão, we’d have vão fazer. If we added the direct object pronoun, the end result would be vão fazê-lo. So, the verb ir is involved in this simplified future, but is completely absent from fá-lo-ão, which is formed from the standard future. I think this was the source of your confusion!