Linguistic Overview
Present Plans for Future Verbs
While some of the Future Forms covered on this page directly communicate verbs that will (or will not) happen in the future, most actually express plans or intentions that are held in the present. Naturally, these plans are for future verbs, but the plan itself exists at the moment of speaking (unless otherwise specified).
For instance, one might say “Kareem is going to visit his cousin next summer,” which really means that Kareem currently is planning on that visit. He will probably carry out his plan when the time comes, but the visit is not entirely set in stone … perhaps another factor arises between now and next summer that changes things; maybe Kareem decides to alter his plans for some reason, or perhaps some external factor prevents him from carrying out his plans.
How the situation eventually turns out is virtually irrelevant to the sentence “Kareem is going to visit his cousin next summer.” The true focus of the sentence is what the subject’s plans are at the moment.
By the way, future actions, events, and states may be regarded as unreal in most situations, at least until they come to pass in what will eventually be the present. The term unreal refers to the fact that such verbs are not set in stone.
More Considerations
The distinction between the various Future Forms often comes down to the source or development of the plan, and to the level of certainty that the plan will be realized.
As a final note: will, be going to, and other Future Forms often reflect the intention of the subject, though they could instead reflect the intention of the speaker.
Future Forms
Will
Meaning
The best-known future indicator is likely will. Taken literally, it refers to volition, determination, and choice. Most of the time, will as a future indicator reflects the subject’s or the speaker’s willpower and/or a particular decision they’ve made.
For instance, “I will clean the house before our guests arrive,” communicates the speaker’s determination to complete this task by a certain deadline.
As another example, “I‘ll take care of that for you,” shows a decision that the speaker has just made.
Form
Will is a modal auxiliary. For Future Plans, it is a Modal of Volition in particular. As a modal, it should be the first part of its verb string (i.e.: If there are any other auxiliary verbs featured in the verb string, they should come after will.). It follows the usual rules of leading auxiliaries, including:
- Negators (like not and never) and certain other types of adverbs generally come immediately after will and before any other auxiliaries or the main verb.
- For some question forms, will should come before the subject.
Also as a modal, will never changes its form to agree with a subject, and it never ends with -s or -ing. Will can be abbreviated as ‘ll and attached to the subject before it. The contracted form of will not is won’t.
Whichever verb follows will (whether the main verb or another auxiliary) should be in its base (or Bare Infinitive) form.
Be Going To
Meaning
The term be going to is perhaps the most common form for Future Plans. Taken literally, it can mean “moving or progressing in order to carry out …”. Most of the time, this phrase does not literally imply physical movement, but rather steps taken toward toward the goal, even if only as a cognitive process. Whereas will often stops at the high-level plan concept, be going to typically involves some sort of preparation.
In the example sentence, “Fiona is going to study hard for her finals,” Fiona has probably gone beyond simply making a decision to study hard. Perhaps she has cancelled other plans to make time for her studies; or she has already collected all books, notes, and other resources she thinks she’ll need; or she is in the midst of organizing a study group. One way or another, Fiona has likely taken steps to carry out her plan.
Form
The BE at the start of this phrase is an auxiliary verb and behaves like any other BE. Thus, be going to can take the following forms:
- “am going to” ← 1st-person singular
- “is going to” ← 3rd-person singular
- “are going to” ← 2nd-person singular or any plural
- “be going to” ← after modal verbs
- “been going to” ← after a Perfect HAVE
For negatives: not should come immediately after ‘am’, ‘is’, or ‘are’. For interrogatives: ‘am’, ‘is’, or ‘are’ should come before the subject. Each of these BE forms can also be contracted and affixed to their preceding subject.
If there are any other auxiliary verbs featured in the verb string, they should come before be going to.
The main verb (which follows to) should be in its base form (or its Bare Infinitive).
Present Continuous
While be going to plans can often seem likely to come true, they are still little more than plans and preparations, and the eventual verb is not guaranteed. For Future Plans that are all but certain, we instead use the Present Continuous tense. Verb phrases using the Present Continuous tense are less about current plans, instead focusing on the future actions, events, or states that the speaker presumes will come true.
Of course, the Present Continuous tense is primarily used for… well… present verbs. When we instead use them for future verbs, the only thing that really changes is the context. If it’s not clear that the speaker is referring to a future time frame, they might include a time expression such as ‘tomorrow’, ‘soon’, ‘by Friday’, etc.
In the example, “The circus is coming to town next week,” the speaker cannot foresee any situation that would prevent this from happening.
Some grammar textbooks state that the Present Continuous is used for plans we make with other people. While it’s not as limiting as that, it’s often true that plans we make with others are more likely to be realized than plans we make by ourselves. If the subject has promised to do something, or if other people are counting on the subject, the speaker might regard the Future Plan as an assured reality.
Modals of Volition
Any core modal verb can be used as a Modal of Volition, but the ones we see, hear, and use most often for Future Plans are will, may, might, can, and could. Shall is also used for volition, but is often considered formal or archaic among modern English speakers
- Can and could convey potential plans, as if expressing options when first considering what to do.
- May and might similarly reveal that a decision has not yet been made. In this case, the options may have already been considered, but still not solidified. Or the speaker may simply wish to express that there are no firm plans to allow for flexibility.
- Could and might tend to be more deferential (perhaps more uncertain, or perhaps more polite) than their counterparts can and may, respectively.
To use may, might, can, or could in a sentence, any of these Future Forms can simply replace will. Alternatively, they could be placed before be going to, although this is a less common form plans (but better suited for Future Predictions).
Requests & Offers
Modal verbs are used in interrogative sentences to ask a request (eg: “Can you pass the salt, please?”) or offer assistance (eg: “Shall I fetch a towel for you?”). Since distal modals (could, might, should, and would) are considered more deferential than their proximal counterparts (can, may, shall, and will), distal modals make these questions sound more polite.
Certain Phrases
Other phrases can be used in a similar fashion to be going to for a more specific meaning. While this is not a definitive list, the most common phrases include:
- be planning on/to
- be about to
- be hoping to
- be thinking of/about
- be meaning to
Most of these phrases draw even more attention to the plan itself, pushing the eventuality into the background. If fact, some of these are a bit more vague (like a consideration that the subject hasn’t decided on yet, or a loose intention without a specified time to accomplish it, for instance).
For these phrases, here are the details regarding the form:
- BE once again transforms into ‘am’, ‘is’, or ‘are’, depending on the subject.
- If the phrase ends in to, the following main verb should be in its base form (Infinitive).
- If the phrase ends in a preposition (like ‘on’, ‘of’, or ‘about’), the following main verb should be in its -ing form (as a Gerund).
Colloquialisms
- Most native English speakers aren’t intentional about the difference between will and be going to. While they might naturally use the better option in some circumstances, they’re also likely to use them interchangeably. The differences between the two are slight enough that this is rarely a problem.
- When speaking out loud, we tend to shortcut the sounds of Future Forms.
- Most notably, going to is often expressed as gonna, as in “I’m gonna see you later.” In fact, this is so common that some English speakers might even spell ‘gonna’ in their written messages.
- For ‘certain phrases’ (be planning to, be hoping to, etc.), we might pronounce the ‘ing’ as [in] and/or pronounce ‘to’ as [tuh] in very informal speech.
Advanced Concepts
Full Infinitives
The Full Infinitive form — aka the to ____ form — is often used to express intentions or results. We have already seen this integrated into be going to, as well as be planning to, be about to, etc., but this is also true beyond such pre-defined phrases.
Consider: “I would love to meet a pop star.” While the verb is technically in the present tense, the act of meeting a pop star would take place in a potential future (which may be a distant future, or as soon as 5 seconds from now).
Also consider: “I’m calling to apologize about yesterday’s incident.” Here, the speaker explains their purpose for the phone call. We can assume that ‘apologize’ happens after ‘calling’ began; in other words, ‘to apologize’ is set in the future (at least relative to starting the call).
By the way, that first example — “would love to meet” — is a Verb Pattern. About half of most Verb Patterns include a Full Infinitive. Visit the Verb Patterns page to learn more about how Infinitives express future notions.
But this applies to many Full Infinitives that follow BE + adjectives as well, as in “am ready to go” or “is curious to learn“. The infinitive takes place after the state of the adjectives; when that state is in the present, this could mean that the following Full Infinitive is for the future.
Present Simple for Appointments
Similar to the Present Continuous tense, the Present Simple tense can be used for future events. It’s used almost exclusively for schedules, as in “Your doctor’s appointment is at 3pm on June 1st,” or “The train departs at 6:00am.”
Without any future indicators like will or be going to, there’s no expression of likelihood. Instead of considering what will probably happen as a result of our current plans, the Present Simple tense assumes that these future events will definitely happen.
More on the Be Going To Form
Negatives
The negative form of be going to typically has the negator not (or perhaps never or no longer) after BE, or whatever the leading auxiliary is. This negates this intention or plan.
However, we could instead use not after to to emphasize a strong intention to prevent a verb. For instance, “I‘m going to not do any work today,” expresses the speaker’s determination to take a rest from work, perhaps because they might be tempted to do so when really they’ve committed to family time or a day or recuperation.
This wording is used sparingly, but it comes across as more forceful than “I‘m not going to do any work today.”
Continuous
In the forms of be going to featured above, ‘being’ is the only form of BE not listed. One could argue that be going to is technically a variation of a Continuous tense; both be going to and the Continuous aspect convey that the verb is in progress. Thus, “be being going to…” would be redundant, not to mention awkward.
Future-in-the-Past
Recall that Future Plans are actually present plans we make for future situations. We could instead express past plans we had for then-future situations. We call this Future-in-the-Past. To express such ideas, we only need to make slight adjustments to the usual Future Forms:
- Use ‘would have‘ instead of ‘will’.
- contracted form: “‘d have” or “would’ve”
- negative form: “wouldn’t have” or (extremely casual) “wouldn’t‘ve”
- For be going to, use the past forms of BE:
- “was going to” ← 1st-person or 3rd-person singular (negative: wasn’t)
- “were going to” ← 2nd-person singular or any plural (negative: weren’t)
- Use ‘could have‘ (‘could’ve’) or ‘might have‘ (‘might’ve’) as Modals of Volition.
We typically use Future-in-the-Past when the plan no longer remains true, which could be for a number of reasons. Maybe we altered our plans, but wish to express an earlier version of the plan. Or maybe we’re lamenting that what we planned for didn’t come true. Or perhaps (but less commonly) the planned verb did come to pass, but we’re more interested at the moment about the intention than the result.
The main verb was intended to be in the future when the plan was originally made. Depending on context, that verb could still be in the future, or it could be in the present, or in the past by now. It may be real or unreal.
Teaching Tips
Will as a Modal
As a future indicator, will is sometimes considered distinct from other modal verbs. But maybe it shouldn’t be. All modal auxiliaries have special properties, and those properties apply to will as well, so it’s important to remember than we use will in the same manner as other modals.
With this in mind, it should be easier to substitute will with other Volitional Modals — like can, could, may, might, or even shall or should — to convey varying levels of confidence or conviction.
Present Forms, Future Meaning
Show students that for most Future Plans, we’re really just talking about what the subject wants or intends to happen, not quite what will actually happen when that moment comes.
When those Future Forms are removed and the verb is expressed in the Present Simple or the Present Continuous tense, we’ve also removed that intention. That means these verbs are assumed to be real, just as with any other application of the Present Simple or Present Continuous tense. The key difference is that the time reference is later instead of now.
Contrary to popular belief, context and time expressions do a lot more to establish the relevant time frame than verb tenses do.
Will vs. Be Going To
The two most common Future Forms, will and be going to, have plenty of overlap, yet have different implications. In many instances, an English speaker can replace one with the other to minimal effect. But there are times when one would be better than the other. So what’s the difference?
Remember that will is pretty close to pure intent. Use will to focus on the decision or on the determination (aka ‘willpower’). On the other hand, be going to expresses progress. Use be going to when the plan has gone beyond mere intention into preparation.
Check out our Will vs. Be Going To page on Insider Access for more (including a video).
Insider Access
Visit our How to Teach Future Forms page on www.insightstoEnglish.com for an overview of most Future Forms. Or visit How to Teach Will vs. Be Going To for a demonstrational video, bonus notes, printouts, a slideshow for your class, practice activities, and more.
Further Reading
Encyclopedia Pages
- Future Predictions — different applications of Future Forms
- Full Infinitives — a form that often has a subtler Future Meaning
- Modal Verbs — often used for the future, especially in their volitional flavor
- Present Continuous — not just for present applications
Insights Articles
- project: Resolutions
- project: Looking Ahead
- Why ‘Will’ is a Modal
Intermediate Topics
CEFR Levels B1-B2: Pre-Intermediate to Upper Intermediate courses
