4 Ways to Talk about the Future in English | Advanced English Grammar

185,255 views ・ 2021-04-14

Speak Confident English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Imagine for a moment that you and I are chatting and I ask,
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what are you doing this weekend? You know, that I'm asking you about the future.
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And so I'm curious, how would you answer that question?
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Would you say something like I will go shopping or I will visit my
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family on Sunday?
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Those two sentences are certainly grammatically correct.
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And when you first started to learn English,
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I'm sure that you learned to use will to talk about the future.
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But here's the problem. When we talk about future plans,
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like what we're going to do on the weekend,
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English speakers don't really use will. In fact,
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there are actually four different ways that we can talk about the future in
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English, whether we're talking about future plans, intentions,
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expectations, wishes, or predictions.
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And in most of those situations, we don't use the word will.
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If that surprises you, you're not alone.
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And the good news is after this lesson today,
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you will know exactly how to talk about the future in English,
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in a variety of situations,
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you'll be able to easily and naturally answer questions.
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Like what are you going to do this weekend?
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What are your vacation plans for the summer?
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What are you doing tonight after work?
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What do you think you'll do this year for the holidays?
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What are your company's sales predictions for the next year? Again,
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all of those questions,
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focus on the future and you'll know exactly to how to answer each one.
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I'm Annemarie was Speak Confident English.
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This is exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want
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for your life and work in English.
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My number one goal is to make sure that you feel comfortable,
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knowledgeable, and confident in everything you do in English,
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whether it's your vocabulary pronunciation,
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or as we're focused on today, your grammar use.
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[Inaudible].
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As I mentioned earlier, we have four different ways.
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We can talk about the future in English. So for the remainder of this lesson,
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we'll look at four different categories or situations. I'll give you examples,
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conversation questions,
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and sample answers to highlight how we talk about the
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future or which grammar tense we may be using.
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The first area we're going to focus on our future scheduled events
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and timetables. For example, think about how you get to work every day.
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Do you take a bus, a Metro, maybe a train. If you do,
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what time does your train leave on Friday?
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I'm not talking about last week.
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I'm talking about this coming Friday in the future.
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What time does your bus or train leave,
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or let's imagine that you have a conference coming up for work and you're
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supposed to do a presentation. Next Thursday,
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I might ask you what time is your presentation scheduled for on Thursday?
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These questions are focused on scheduled events. For example,
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a scheduled presentation at a conference and timetables.
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For example,
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the times that trains are scheduled to leave or the Metro,
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a bus or a flight, and those cases,
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you typically cannot change the schedule. The times are fixed.
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And when we talk about those future scheduled times or timetables,
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we use the present simple.
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My presentation on Thursday starts at 10:00 AM.
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My flight to Barcelona next week takes off in the afternoon.
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In every one of those sentences,
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I'm using the present simple to talk about a future event that is scheduled
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or with a fixed timetable.
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We use the same pattern when we talk about medical appointments,
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dental appointments, movie times, restaurant reservations.
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What time a store opens or closes or a schedule of events
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at a conference in all those situations,
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we use the simple present to talk about those future events. Now,
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before we go onto the second category,
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if you want more examples of how the present simple is used to talk about these
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future events,
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I recommend visiting this lesson on the Speak Confident English website.
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In the lesson there,
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I have multiple examples for you to follow and practice questions
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you can use as well. And now let's move on to category number two,
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future plans and arrangements. Let me ask you a question.
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What are you doing this weekend? Go ahead. Get your calendar out. Take a look.
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See if you have anything planned for the weekend or what if I asked you,
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what are you doing next weekend? What about the weekend after that?
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What do you have planned? What do you have planned for your summer vacation?
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When I ask about future plans or arrangements,
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what that means is that you've made a decision.
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You've made a decision to spend time doing something over the weekend,
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or you've made a decision about where you're going for your summer vacation.
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Perhaps you've already made reservations, purchased tickets. And so on.
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When we talk about our future plans and arrangements, again,
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decisions that we've made and we've already started the preparations to do them,
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we use the present continuous to talk about those future
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plans. So let's go back to that question.
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What are you doing this weekend in answering that question?
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You would use the present continuous. I'm going to the movies.
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I'm taking my family to the park. We're spending the weekend at the beach.
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If I know that you've already made decisions for your summer vacation.
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When I ask you about your plans,
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you'll say we're going to Spain or we're spending several days hiking
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in the mountains. If I'm trying to schedule something with you, for example,
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if I say, do you have time for a class tomorrow at two,
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you might take a look at your calendar and say, no.
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I'm meeting with a client tomorrow at that time.
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As you can see in all of those examples,
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when we're talking about future plans or arrangements,
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we use the present continuous,
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if you want more examples so that you can see that pattern,
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practice it and feel more comfortable with it. Again,
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I recommend going to the Speak Confident English website,
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visiting this lesson to review all of those examples.
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And now category number three,
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talking about future intentions and predictions with evidence.
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In the last examples we talked about plans or arrangements that you've made.
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There's been a decision and you've already taken action steps,
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such as making a reservation or purchasing tickets. However,
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sometimes there are things that we want to do.
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We have the intention to do, but we haven't made arrangements yet.
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For example, most of us at the start of the new year,
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we'll probably say something like I'm going to start working out again,
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after the new year. There's no specific date.
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There are no specific arrangements,
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but it is something that you want to do after the new year.
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It's a future intention right now.
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Many of us are more than one year into the COVID-19 pandemic.
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And we are desperate to travel.
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We have a lot of intentions travel plans that we want to
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make, but we haven't done it yet. We haven't booked any tickets.
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We haven't reserved any hotel rooms because we're just not sure.
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Or maybe it's not possible yet.
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But when we talk about those future intentions, we might say,
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as soon as it's safe to travel, I'm going to book a flight to Spain.
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Or as soon as it's safe, I'm going to travel to Europe.
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As soon as I can, I'm going to visit some friends in Brazil.
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What do you notice about all those example sentences?
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I'm going to travel to Europe. I'm going to visit friends in Brazil.
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I'm going to start working out after the new year.
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The sentence structure I'm using is going to plus the infinitive
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verb, going to start, going to travel,
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going to visit.
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We use this same structure when we talk about predictions with
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evidence. Let me explain what I mean by that.
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If I look out my window,
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I might see huge storm clouds coming in.
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It isn't raining yet,
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but I can see based on the clouds and maybe the weather forecast that it's
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going to rain soon.
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So if I'm with a coworker at the office, I might say,
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don't forget to take your umbrella when you leave, it's going to rain soon.
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I'm making a future prediction based on evidence.
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Here's another example. If you work in sales,
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you probably have sales targets for every quarter. Maybe even every month,
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if things are going particularly well,
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you might make a future prediction and say,
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if we continue at this rate,
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we're definitely going to hit our sales targets before the end of the quarter.
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Again,
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you're using the current situation as evidence and making a future
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prediction. And as you can see,
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we're using that going to plus the infinitive.
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All right,
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now that we've talked about scheduled events and timetables,
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where we use the present. Simple to talk about those future events, plans,
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and arrangements with the present,
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continuous intentions and predictions with evidence using,
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going to in the infinitive verb, you might be wondering,
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do we ever use will in English for anything related to the future?
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We do. This is our fourth category. In this last category,
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we're going to talk about predictions without evidence,
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immediate decisions and factual statements.
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Let me give you some example questions to help illustrate that.
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What if I ask you, what do you think life will be like in 20 years?
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With that question, I'm asking you to make some kind of a future prediction,
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but 20 years is a really long time from now.
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And we really don't have enough evidence to accurately predict the
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future in 20 years.
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So we're making a prediction without evidence.
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So our response to that question would include will my
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prediction is cars will fly and everyone will live in a glass house.
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It's simply my prediction based on nothing.
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I have no evidence of any of that. I'm just giving my thoughts.
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Here's another question. As an example,
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do you think it will rain while we're on vacation next month a month is a really
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long time for a weather forecast. So again,
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you're going to be making some predictions without any real evidence.
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And now let's talk about factual statements.
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If someone's having a terrible day, one way to respond is to say,
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I'm so sorry, you're having a bad day, but thankfully,
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tomorrow the sun will rise and the day will go on.
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You cannot change the rising of the sun. It will happen.
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Time will pass. These are factual statements.
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And when we talk about those facts in the future, we use, well,
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here's another example.
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Imagine that you're going to a conference where you had to purchase a ticket to
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attend.
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And do you know that every ticket for the conference was sold?
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It was sold out. So when you arrive at the conference,
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you might tell a colleague that you want to arrive early for the
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lecture because you know, it will be difficult to find a seat.
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That's the fact,
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it will be difficult to find a seat because the conference is sold out.
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And now finally,
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our last situation for using will is when we've made an immediate
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decision in the moment of speaking. For example,
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let's say that you and a coworker are preparing for a meeting.
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You're in a conference room, getting everything ready,
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waiting for everyone to arrive.
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And your coworker realizes that she forgot a document in her office.
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It's a document that you need for the meeting. And she says, Oh my gosh,
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I forgot the document. It's in my office. And you say, I'll get it.
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I will get it. I'll get it. In that moment of speaking,
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you made an immediate decision and you're using will in your response.
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And let's say that while you're at the meeting,
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you realize you're going to get home late and you will not be able to take care
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of dinner for your family. Your meeting is going long.
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There's a big discussion happening. And you know, you won't get home in time.
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So you send a text message to your partner, your spouse,
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letting them know that you're going to be late.
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You won't be able to get dinner ready and they respond with I'll take care of it
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or all get dinner ready again. I will take care of it.
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I will get dinner ready. The decision is getting made in that moment.
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And with that,
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you have four different ways of talking about the future in English and
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doing it naturally. So now it's time for you to practice.
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I have four questions. I'm going to ask you.
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And I want you to think about what you've learned in this lesson and use that
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information to help you answer these questions. Question number one,
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what are you doing this weekend? Question number two.
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What time does your favorite coffee shop open tomorrow? Question number three.
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What are you going to do for fun next summer? And finally, question number four.
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What do you think life will be like in 20 years?
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You can share your answers to those questions with me and practice everything
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that you've learned in this lesson. In the comment section below. Again,
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if you want more examples of how to use the present, simple, the present,
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continuous going to plus the infinitive verb,
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and will for talking about the future,
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you can visit this lesson at the Speak Confident English website.
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If you found this lesson useful to you, I would love to know.
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And you can tell me in two very simple ways. Number one,
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give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to this channel.
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So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons. Number two,
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if you have a friend,
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family member or coworker who is also working to develop true confidence
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in their English skills, share this lesson with them directly,
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you can do that by email or shared on Facebook. Have a wonderful week.
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Thank you so much for joining me.
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And I look forward to seeing you next time for your Confident English lesson.
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