Part 2: Verbs
Future Tense
Examples
You will go to the ball!
She’s going to be late.
The carriage is leaving at 5pm.
Definition
Common sense suggests that a language which has past and present tenses must have a future tense. English, however, is a bit tricky since it does not technically have a future tense – that is, you can’t inflect (change) a verb to make it future as you can for the present and past. Some languages like French and Spanish have inflected future tenses, which your learners might expect in English.
Nonetheless, we obviously can talk about the future, and we use several different verb forms to do this. When most people think about the future tense, they probably mean the use of will (I will call you later). Technically, will is a modal verb that expresses future intention, very confident predictions, or certain outcomes. Other ways to express the future include:
- be going to, especially for plans (I’m going to see the new Marvel movie this weekend)
- present progressive for the near future or scheduled events (the play is starting in five minutes)
- present simple/timeless present for events that always happen (the class ends at 2pm).
Form
While there are small differences in meaning among the different future forms, their use is often idiomatic rather than strictly rule-based, and it is not a priority for learners to worry about the differences.
Careful!
We do not use will in adverb clauses of time and condition (in clauses starting with if, when, before, and after). This is a common error especially since other languages do prefer the future tense in time clauses. For example:
I will call you after I will get home.
When you will enter the building, go to the main office.
