Level: intermediate
When we know about the future, we normally use the present tense.
1. We use the present simple for something scheduled:
We have a lesson next Monday.
The train arrives at 6.30 in the morning.
The holidays start next week.
It's my birthday tomorrow.
2. We can use the present continuous for plans or arrangements:
I'm playing football tomorrow.
They are coming to see us tomorrow.
We're having a party at Christmas.
3. We use will:
- when we express beliefs about the future:
It will be a nice day tomorrow.
I think Brazil will win the World Cup.
I'm sure you will enjoy the film.
- to mean want to or be willing to:
I hope you will come to my party.
George says he will help us.
- to make offers and promises :
I'll see you tomorrow.
We'll send you an email.
- to talk about offers and promises:
Tim will be at the meeting.
Mary will help with the cooking.
4. We use be going to:
- to talk about plans or intentions:
I'm going to drive to work today.
They are going to move to Manchester.
- to make predictions based on evidence we can see:
Be careful! You are going to fall. (= I can see that you might fall.)
Look at those black clouds. I think it's going to rain. (= I can see that it will rain.)
5. We use will be with an -ing form for something happening before and after a specific time in the future:
I'll be working at eight o'clock. Can you come later?
They'll be waiting for you when you arrive.
6. We can use will be with an -ing form instead of the present continuous or be going to when we are talking about plans, arrangements and intentions:
They'll be coming to see us next week.
I'll be driving to work tomorrow.
7. We often use verbs like would like, plan, want, mean, hope, expect to talk about the future:
What are you going to do next year? I'd like to go to university.
We plan to go to France for our holidays.
George wants to buy a new car.
8. We use modals may, might and could when we are not sure about the future:
I might stay at home tonight or I might go to the cinema.
We could see Mary at the meeting. She sometimes goes.
9. We can use should if we think there's a good chance of something happening:
We should be home in time for tea.
The game should be over by eight o'clock.
- Talking about the future 1
- Talking about the future 2
The future in time clauses and if-clauses
In time clauses with words like when, after, until we often use present tense forms to talk about the future:
I'll come home when I finish work.
You must wait here until your father comes.
They are coming after they have had dinner.
In clauses with if we often use present tense forms to talk about the future:
We won't be able to go out if it is raining.
If Barcelona lose tomorrow, they will be champions.
| Be careful! |
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We do not normally use will in time clauses and if-clauses:
but we can use will if it means want to or be willing to:
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Hello Ysato201602
As I understand it, the present simple is used to speak about scheduled events, i.e. events that you could find on a timetable that is available to the public. Although I can see how, in a sense, birthdays are on a timetable, it is not correct to use the present simple in either of the sentences your students asked about.
I'm impressed, however, that your students had such a question -- it shows they are really thinking about the grammar!
Best wishes to you and your students
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello aaaaa
Do you mean which verb forms should you use?
When you are speaking about plans that you have for your life, the best form is probably 'to be going to' (e.g. 'I'm going to travel to Mongolia when I'm 70'). When you are making predictions, that is, when you don't have a plan but you are supposing what you will do, you could use 'will' for discrete actions (e.g. 'I won't go to work every morning') or 'might' or 'may' for ones you are less sure about. You could use the future continuous for actions that happen over a longer period of time (e.g. 'I'll be living in a small fishing village on the coast of the Adriatic').
Does that give you some ideas?
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Anna Bo,
Yes, you can use will in this way. You are creating a relative clause within the sentence. If the relative clause is defining (i.e. it identifies the group) then you can use that as the relative pronoun. In this case, no commas are needed. However, if the relative clause is non-defining (i.e. it provides extra, non-essential, information) then you cannot use that but must use a different relative pronoun (who or which) or a relative adverb (when, where or why).
In your sentence you need to decide if the relative clause is intended to identify which group you are talking about (in which case you need to remove the commas) or if you are simply providing additional interesting information (in which case you need to replace that with which).
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello ElaMariela
It's difficult to say for sure without the exact context, but I expect the writer is imagining the future situation in which she or he is communicating with the client. By using the future continuous, they could be imagining it as a process. 2 is more of a statement about a future plan and 3 is more of a promise or offer to follow up.
Does that make sense?
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Shaban Nafea
The second sentence is correct and natural; the first one is not correct.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Shaban Nafea
Both are grammatically correct. In a specific context, the second one could be better, but in general the first is probably better. It depends on the context and what you mean.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Graziella
That depends on the situation and what you want to say. The one with 'will' would make sense when you are sure that you can help the other person and the one with 'might' would make sense when you are not sure that you can help. So both can be correct -- it depends on what you mean.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Risa warysha,
Both sentences are grammatically possible and have essentially the same meaning. I would say the first might suggest that the work will end more or less on Monday, while the second is a little broader and implies that it may be done earlier, but that Tuesday is the latest possible end date. However, I can't think of a context in which you would not be able to use either.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello InmaLD,
The choice of future is dependent here on how the speaker sees the situation. In the first example we have something like a promise. The speaker is telling the other person what they have decided to do (come home) once a certain condition (finish work) is fulfilled. In the second example, the speaker is describing an arrangement that has been made between the speaker and the peope who are coming to dinner.
Grammatically, you could use 'will' in the second sentence, but it would change the meaning of the sentence and mean that the speaker was guessing or predicting behaviour rather that talking about something they had arranged together.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohsen.k77,
When we use a word like this to simply mean 'father' then we use a small letter. However, when we use it in place of a name, to represent a particular person, we capitalise it.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohsen,
When we show that two things are equal using adjectives, we use 'as' before and after the adjective:
We can use the same structure to show multiples:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohsen.k77
Only one is mentioned in the sentence but I assume that in context there would be another point of comparison. For example, the sentence could mean
twice as common in children as adults
twice as common in children as another disease
twice as common in children as it was ten years
Grammatically speaking, it is not correct to say twice more common. You can say more common than, but when we use a multiplier then the correct form is twice as common as / three times as common as / a million times as common as etc.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
Both are quite possible. 'Going to' expresses an intention, while 'will' expresses a sudden/spontaneous decision. In the context you provide, both would be possible.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello fdrewaserera,
Both 'going to win' and 'will win' are possible here.
'Going to win' is a prediction based on something you see or know now, such as the skill of the players.
'Will win' is more of a personal belief.
'Are winning' would tell us that the match has already stated. It describes something happening now, not in the future.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello fdrewaserera,
You can, but it would depend on what the question is and in what context it is used.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello paritosh0125,
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. 'Going to' describes a person's intention or the expected result of a present situation, and it is one of the ways of talking about the future in English. You can see examples on the page above, and you can see a discussion of different ways of describing plans on this page:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/intermediate-grammar/future-plans
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam
What you say makes sense and yes, 'isn't going to' is a good choice here. But 'won't be' is also fine, as it expresses a belief about the future. In some cases, such as this one, more than one form is possible.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Saqib,
We use a present form after time words like 'after' and 'before', so the correct form would be 'After she finishes her degree, she intends to work in an office'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
I guess by 'stronger' you mean expressing more certainty that the event will take place. If so, I would say the first (are coming) is stronger. It assumes that the meeting/visit is fixed and not likely to change. The second (will be coming) is more an expectation or prediction of something that is in the normal course of events: they'll be coming to see us tomorrow because they come every Friday.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Shaban Nafea
Both can be correct but one or the other is better in certain contexts. 'won't' implies that Sarah is unwilling (i.e. does not want) to go. 'isn't going to go' can mean the same thing, but doesn't specifically imply unwillingness; it could be that she is travelling, for example, and so it's impossible for her to go with us.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Grungedoom
I've never heard the rule about 'going to' and 'will' that you describe. It works in many cases, but as you've discovered, not all, because it is indeed correct to use 'will' in questions with 'when', for example.
I think it's better to think of 'going to' as the form we use to speak about a planned action. We probably have an idea of when we will carry out a planned action, though not necessarily.
As described above, 'will' is often used to speak about something we offer or promise to do when speaking with someone. If I was your teacher, for example, I could say 'Could someone turn off the lights after class?' and you could offer or promise to do that by responding 'I will'.
I hope this helps you make more sense of this. I'd encourage you to pay attention to how people speak or write about the future in the readings and listenings in our Skills section -- it can be really useful to analyse these forms in context.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Hayley16
An infinitive can be used after a noun to give a future meaning, but this is a fairly uncommon usage. In this case, 'to be serviced' is a passive infinitive which is used to modify the noun phrase 'the car'. 'next' gives the sentence a near future time reference.
On a different note, it's also possible to use the infinitive after the verb 'be' (e.g. 'The renovations are to be carried out next year') to speak of a plan or arrangement. This usage is quite formal, though.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Teacher.Iya.Ces
Both 'go' and 'are going' are possible here. The structure in this sentence is what is often called a first conditional -- it is explained a little bit in the last section of this page, or you can see another more detailed explanation of it on our Conditionals 1 page.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello KhaledElkarrani
For that question, I would answer 'are going to win' because the prediction is based on some visible evidence (which is mentioned in the first part of the sentence).
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team