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

Imagine for a moment that you and I are chatting and I ask,

what are you doing this weekend? You know, that I'm asking you about the future.

And so I'm curious, how would you answer that question?

Would you say something like I will go shopping or I will visit my

family on Sunday?

Those two sentences are certainly grammatically correct.

And when you first started to learn English,

I'm sure that you learned to use will to talk about the future.

But here's the problem. When we talk about future plans,

like what we're going to do on the weekend,

English speakers don't really use will. In fact,

there are actually four different ways that we can talk about the future in

English, whether we're talking about future plans, intentions,

expectations, wishes, or predictions.

And in most of those situations, we don't use the word will.

If that surprises you, you're not alone.

And the good news is after this lesson today,

you will know exactly how to talk about the future in English,

in a variety of situations,

you'll be able to easily and naturally answer questions.

Like what are you going to do this weekend?

What are your vacation plans for the summer?

What are you doing tonight after work?

What do you think you'll do this year for the holidays?

What are your company's sales predictions for the next year? Again,

all of those questions,

focus on the future and you'll know exactly to how to answer each one.

I'm Annemarie was Speak Confident English.

This is exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want

for your life and work in English.

My number one goal is to make sure that you feel comfortable,

knowledgeable, and confident in everything you do in English,

whether it's your vocabulary pronunciation,

or as we're focused on today, your grammar use.

[Inaudible].

As I mentioned earlier, we have four different ways.

We can talk about the future in English. So for the remainder of this lesson,

we'll look at four different categories or situations. I'll give you examples,

conversation questions,

and sample answers to highlight how we talk about the

future or which grammar tense we may be using.

The first area we're going to focus on our future scheduled events

and timetables. For example, think about how you get to work every day.

Do you take a bus, a Metro, maybe a train. If you do,

what time does your train leave on Friday?

I'm not talking about last week.

I'm talking about this coming Friday in the future.

What time does your bus or train leave,

or let's imagine that you have a conference coming up for work and you're

supposed to do a presentation. Next Thursday,

I might ask you what time is your presentation scheduled for on Thursday?

These questions are focused on scheduled events. For example,

a scheduled presentation at a conference and timetables.

For example,

the times that trains are scheduled to leave or the Metro,

a bus or a flight, and those cases,

you typically cannot change the schedule. The times are fixed.

And when we talk about those future scheduled times or timetables,

we use the present simple.

My presentation on Thursday starts at 10:00 AM.

My flight to Barcelona next week takes off in the afternoon.

In every one of those sentences,

I'm using the present simple to talk about a future event that is scheduled

or with a fixed timetable.

We use the same pattern when we talk about medical appointments,

dental appointments, movie times, restaurant reservations.

What time a store opens or closes or a schedule of events

at a conference in all those situations,

we use the simple present to talk about those future events. Now,

before we go onto the second category,

if you want more examples of how the present simple is used to talk about these

future events,

I recommend visiting this lesson on the Speak Confident English website.

In the lesson there,

I have multiple examples for you to follow and practice questions

you can use as well. And now let's move on to category number two,

future plans and arrangements. Let me ask you a question.

What are you doing this weekend? Go ahead. Get your calendar out. Take a look.

See if you have anything planned for the weekend or what if I asked you,

what are you doing next weekend? What about the weekend after that?

What do you have planned? What do you have planned for your summer vacation?

When I ask about future plans or arrangements,

what that means is that you've made a decision.

You've made a decision to spend time doing something over the weekend,

or you've made a decision about where you're going for your summer vacation.

Perhaps you've already made reservations, purchased tickets. And so on.

When we talk about our future plans and arrangements, again,

decisions that we've made and we've already started the preparations to do them,

we use the present continuous to talk about those future

plans. So let's go back to that question.

What are you doing this weekend in answering that question?

You would use the present continuous. I'm going to the movies.

I'm taking my family to the park. We're spending the weekend at the beach.

If I know that you've already made decisions for your summer vacation.

When I ask you about your plans,

you'll say we're going to Spain or we're spending several days hiking

in the mountains. If I'm trying to schedule something with you, for example,

if I say, do you have time for a class tomorrow at two,

you might take a look at your calendar and say, no.

I'm meeting with a client tomorrow at that time.

As you can see in all of those examples,

when we're talking about future plans or arrangements,

we use the present continuous,

if you want more examples so that you can see that pattern,

practice it and feel more comfortable with it. Again,

I recommend going to the Speak Confident English website,

visiting this lesson to review all of those examples.

And now category number three,

talking about future intentions and predictions with evidence.

In the last examples we talked about plans or arrangements that you've made.

There's been a decision and you've already taken action steps,

such as making a reservation or purchasing tickets. However,

sometimes there are things that we want to do.

We have the intention to do, but we haven't made arrangements yet.

For example, most of us at the start of the new year,

we'll probably say something like I'm going to start working out again,

after the new year. There's no specific date.

There are no specific arrangements,

but it is something that you want to do after the new year.

It's a future intention right now.

Many of us are more than one year into the COVID-19 pandemic.

And we are desperate to travel.

We have a lot of intentions travel plans that we want to

make, but we haven't done it yet. We haven't booked any tickets.

We haven't reserved any hotel rooms because we're just not sure.

Or maybe it's not possible yet.

But when we talk about those future intentions, we might say,

as soon as it's safe to travel, I'm going to book a flight to Spain.

Or as soon as it's safe, I'm going to travel to Europe.

As soon as I can, I'm going to visit some friends in Brazil.

What do you notice about all those example sentences?

I'm going to travel to Europe. I'm going to visit friends in Brazil.

I'm going to start working out after the new year.

The sentence structure I'm using is going to plus the infinitive

verb, going to start, going to travel,

going to visit.

We use this same structure when we talk about predictions with

evidence. Let me explain what I mean by that.

If I look out my window,

I might see huge storm clouds coming in.

It isn't raining yet,

but I can see based on the clouds and maybe the weather forecast that it's

going to rain soon.

So if I'm with a coworker at the office, I might say,

don't forget to take your umbrella when you leave, it's going to rain soon.

I'm making a future prediction based on evidence.

Here's another example. If you work in sales,

you probably have sales targets for every quarter. Maybe even every month,

if things are going particularly well,

you might make a future prediction and say,

if we continue at this rate,

we're definitely going to hit our sales targets before the end of the quarter.

Again,

you're using the current situation as evidence and making a future

prediction. And as you can see,

we're using that going to plus the infinitive.

All right,

now that we've talked about scheduled events and timetables,

where we use the present. Simple to talk about those future events, plans,

and arrangements with the present,

continuous intentions and predictions with evidence using,

going to in the infinitive verb, you might be wondering,

do we ever use will in English for anything related to the future?

We do. This is our fourth category. In this last category,

we're going to talk about predictions without evidence,

immediate decisions and factual statements.

Let me give you some example questions to help illustrate that.

What if I ask you, what do you think life will be like in 20 years?

With that question, I'm asking you to make some kind of a future prediction,

but 20 years is a really long time from now.

And we really don't have enough evidence to accurately predict the

future in 20 years.

So we're making a prediction without evidence.

So our response to that question would include will my

prediction is cars will fly and everyone will live in a glass house.

It's simply my prediction based on nothing.

I have no evidence of any of that. I'm just giving my thoughts.

Here's another question. As an example,

do you think it will rain while we're on vacation next month a month is a really

long time for a weather forecast. So again,

you're going to be making some predictions without any real evidence.

And now let's talk about factual statements.

If someone's having a terrible day, one way to respond is to say,

I'm so sorry, you're having a bad day, but thankfully,

tomorrow the sun will rise and the day will go on.

You cannot change the rising of the sun. It will happen.

Time will pass. These are factual statements.

And when we talk about those facts in the future, we use, well,

here's another example.

Imagine that you're going to a conference where you had to purchase a ticket to

attend.

And do you know that every ticket for the conference was sold?

It was sold out. So when you arrive at the conference,

you might tell a colleague that you want to arrive early for the

lecture because you know, it will be difficult to find a seat.

That's the fact,

it will be difficult to find a seat because the conference is sold out.

And now finally,

our last situation for using will is when we've made an immediate

decision in the moment of speaking. For example,

let's say that you and a coworker are preparing for a meeting.

You're in a conference room, getting everything ready,

waiting for everyone to arrive.

And your coworker realizes that she forgot a document in her office.

It's a document that you need for the meeting. And she says, Oh my gosh,

I forgot the document. It's in my office. And you say, I'll get it.

I will get it. I'll get it. In that moment of speaking,

you made an immediate decision and you're using will in your response.

And let's say that while you're at the meeting,

you realize you're going to get home late and you will not be able to take care

of dinner for your family. Your meeting is going long.

There's a big discussion happening. And you know, you won't get home in time.

So you send a text message to your partner, your spouse,

letting them know that you're going to be late.

You won't be able to get dinner ready and they respond with I'll take care of it

or all get dinner ready again. I will take care of it.

I will get dinner ready. The decision is getting made in that moment.

And with that,

you have four different ways of talking about the future in English and

doing it naturally. So now it's time for you to practice.

I have four questions. I'm going to ask you.

And I want you to think about what you've learned in this lesson and use that

information to help you answer these questions. Question number one,

what are you doing this weekend? Question number two.

What time does your favorite coffee shop open tomorrow? Question number three.

What are you going to do for fun next summer? And finally, question number four.

What do you think life will be like in 20 years?

You can share your answers to those questions with me and practice everything

that you've learned in this lesson. In the comment section below. Again,

if you want more examples of how to use the present, simple, the present,

continuous going to plus the infinitive verb,

and will for talking about the future,

you can visit this lesson at the Speak Confident English website.

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And I look forward to seeing you next time for your Confident English lesson.