Future with 'Going to'
Anything after now is the future, and in English, we have many ways and tenses to talk about the future. Some are more basic and some are more advanced.
What Is '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 tense. It is just a phrase, an expression, that we use to talk about plans and predictions in the future.
Future with 'going to': Structure
To construct the future tense with 'going to' use be going to + the base form of the verb. Let us take a look at examples:
She
Remember, 'visit' is the base form (infinitive without to).
I
Future with 'going to': Negation
To make a negative sentence use 'subject pronoun + the verb be + not going to and the base form of the verb.
Here are the examples:
It
They
Future with 'going to': Questions
To make yes/no questions, you have to put the verb 'to be' at 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 the verb 'to be', the subject, 'going to', and the rest of the sentence. Take a look at the following example:
He's going to eat dinner
Using Future with 'Going to' to Talk about Plans
Future with 'going to': Uses
'Be going to' is commonly used in informal situations to talk about plans. It has different uses:
- Plans and Arrangements
- Predictions
Plans and Arrangements
If we know that we are going to do something tomorrow, this weekend, next month, next year, etc. in advance, we use be going to.
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.
Here are the examples:
I
Here, you are pretty certain that you are going to find a job next month.
We need potatoes to make dinner. I
Here you already made up your mind.
Sometimes the decision is not made by you, yourself. Sometimes by using be going to we refer to other's intentions. For example, those that are in charge, or an authority's intention. Check out the examples for more clarification:
The government
Our boss
Predictions
'Be going to' is used to predict something in the future that we know will happen for sure. In these examples, it is clear that the structure is used to predict the future:
The sky is getting darker. It
Here the speaker is predicting something in future based on what he sees.
It's 3-0. They
It is obvious that they are going to loose for sure.
We can also use the expression 'be going to' to talk about events that are about to happen in near future or just started to happen. For example:
Look at the papers, she
The sky is getting dark. We
Tip!
In some informal situations, we can use 'be going to' to give orders to somebody (usually to a person younger than us) and say that something needs to be done. Check out this example:
You
here in this example the person is saying: do your homework right now.
Past with 'Be Going to'
We can use 'be going to' to talk about past plans, 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 in formal situations. Here is an example:
This is
Remember 'gonna' is the contracted form of 'going to,' so you must use 'infinitive without to' after that.
Review
Besides using the auxiliary 'will' you can use 'to be going to' to talk about future plans and predictions. Whenever we use 'to be going to' for plans they are fixed and we are sure that they are going to happen.
Structure, Contraction, Affirmative, Negative, informal, and Question Forms
| Structure | subject + am/is/are + going to + base form of verb |
|---|---|
| affirmative |
He |
| negative |
He |
| contraction |
He |
| informal |
He |
| yes/no question |
|
| -wh question |
|
When to Use 'to Be Going to'?
- To talk about planned situations
- To talk about predicting the future
- To give orders
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