English Grammar - The future in the past - "Was/Were going to"

Hey guys, this is Alex, thanks for clicking and welcome to this lesson on going to, or

be going to, and talking about the future in the past.

Now we know that we use going to to talk about the future.

So imagine this scenario, you know, you finished your day, maybe at work, maybe at school,

and you tell a friend of yours, a colleague, that you're going to call them at 8pm.

So you make a promise, right?

Let's say it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and you tell your friend, "Okay, I'm going

to call you at 8pm tonight."

So you have that on the board.

Now this, going to, I am going to call you, this is for a future plan.

I think most of you know that at this point.

Now let's say that you can't call them at 8pm for some reason.

So you get home, you make dinner, you watch TV, maybe there's a family emergency, maybe

you just forget, okay?

Either way, for some reason, you cannot call your friend or your colleague.

So you have to apologize afterwards, right?

So for example, let's say that you remember at 9pm that you had planned to call your friend.

So you call your friend and you say, "I'm sorry, I was going to call you at 8pm, but

I forgot."

So if you're talking about the future, talking about the future in the past, you would use

was or were going to.

So in this situation, you're actually talking about something that you planned to do in

the past, in the future, but you were interrupted for some reason.

So again, maybe you forgot or an emergency happened.

So as the sentence says, "I was going to call you, but I forgot."

Now I'm going to give you a couple of more examples just to give you guys a good feel

for how we actually use this future in the past construction.

So keep in mind, again, we use going to to talk about the future.

Let's pretend that it's the present and you're going back to the past and talking about another

point in the future in the past.

So I'm going to draw you a little chart.

So again, here, you tell your friend, "I am going to call you at 8pm."

And the day is going, the day is going, it's 5 o'clock, it's 6 o'clock, it's 8 o'clock

right here.

Let's pretend this is 8 o'clock.

Let's say this is 4 o'clock.

This is 8 o'clock.

You forgot to call your friend, basically.

So now, in the present, it's 9 o'clock.

You have to apologize to your friend.

So you say, remember you made this promise.

At this time you said, "I am going to call you at 8 o'clock."

You didn't call them at 8 o'clock.

So now you have to say, "Well, I was going to call you at 8 o'clock," because this is

in the past, "was going to," but I simply forgot.

Okay, let's look at a couple of more examples, guys, and we'll be back in one second.

Okay, so now we have a few more examples of using the future in the past with "was going

to" or "were going to."

So the first one says, "I always knew you were going to get married."

The second one says, "She said they were going to win, but they didn't."

And the third one says, "You promised that you were going to help me study."

These are all examples of the future in the past.

In the first example, "I always knew you were going to get married."

So for example, if your friend, your best friend, always told you in the past, maybe

two years ago, and you had a girlfriend at the time, and he said, "You're going to marry

this girl.

You're going to get married," okay?

Now he's telling you in the present about the past, about the future in the past, saying,

"At that time, I always knew you were going to get married," okay?

In the second example, "She said they were going to win, but they didn't."

So let's imagine there's a soccer game, a hockey game, a basketball game, football,

doesn't matter, and the game is at 7 o'clock, okay?

So at 7 o'clock, your friend says, "They're going to win," okay?

Whichever team it is, it doesn't matter.

Now it's 10 o'clock, the game is over, the team didn't win.

Now you could tell your friend about your other friend and say, "Well, she said they

were going to win, but they didn't.

They didn't win after all, but she said they were going to in the past about the future."

And the last one, "You promised that you were going to help me study."

So maybe two hours ago, you made a promise to your sister, your brother, a friend of

yours, and you said, "Okay, I'm going to help you study."

And two hours later comes, and you still haven't helped your sister or your friend, so they

come up to you and they say, "Well, in the past, you promised me.

You said I am going to help you study.

So you promised that you were going to help me study."

So again, the formula for this is subject plus was or were plus, sorry about that, going

to plus base verb.

So here you have the structure that you can clearly see.

I always knew you were going to get, base verb, married.

She said they, subject, were going to win, okay, base verb.

You promised that you, subject, were going to help, base verb, me study, okay.

If you're not confused yet or if you are confused, you can test your understanding, test your

knowledge on the engVid site by doing the quiz at the bottom of this video.

All right, guys, good luck and take care.

See ya.