Future with 'Going to' in English Grammar
Anything after now is the future, and in English, we have many ways and tenses to talk about this tense. Some are more basic and some are more advanced.
Future with 'going to'
A common way to talk about the future in English is by using 'be going to'. Some argue that 'going to' is not a tense. It's just a phrase, an expression that we use to talk about plans and predictions in the future or in the past.
Future with 'going to': Structure
To construct the future tense with 'going to' use be going to + the base form of the verb.
She
I
Future with 'going to': Negation
For making a negative sentence use 'Subject pronoun + the verb "be" + "not going to" and the base form of the verb.
It
They
Future with 'going to': Questions
To make yes/no questions, you have to bring the verb ‘to be’ to the beginning, followed by the subject, going to and the rest of the sentence. Take a look at this example:
He
To make wh- questions, you need wh- question words first. These words come at the beginning of the question right before verb ‘to be’ and the subject and 'going to' and the rest of the sentence. Take a look at the following example:
He's
going
to
eat
dinner
Future with 'going to': Uses
'Be going to' is commonly used in informal situations. It has different uses:
Talking about Planned Situations
If we know in advance, that we're going to do something tomorrow, this weekend, next month, next year etc. that's planned.
We have two options of how to communicate that:
- using going to
- using present continuous tense
We use 'be going to' to talk about our future plans. Often we have already made up our minds about that plan and we are pretty certain that plan would happen.
I
We
need
potatoes
to
make
dinner
.
I
Talking about Predicting the Future
'Be going to' is used to predict something in the future that we know for sure it will happen.
The
sky
is
getting
darker
.
It
It's
3-0
.
They
Giving Orders
In some informal situations, we can use 'be going to' to give orders to somebody (usually to a person younger than we) and say that something is necessary to be done.
You
'Be Going to' with Other Tenses
We can use 'be going to' in other tenses as well, for example:
I
He
Informal Form of Going to: Gonna
In spoken English and in informal situations, native speakers use 'gonna' instead of going to. Remember that it is not correct to use it in written form and formal situations.
This
is
