This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 136.
Will you be joining us to learn English grammar today?
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Hey, Aubrey, what's going on? How are you feeling today?
I'm great, Lindsay. How are you? I'm good.
I'm good. Yeah, it's summertime. So all good.
Nice. Yeah, right. What are you doing for the next few weeks?
What will you be doing? Got to use today's grammar.
What will you be doing for the next few weeks?
More specific. Wow, I guess I will, you know, things are going to calm down and then things are going to get crazy.
Things will be getting crazy again. So I'll be flying out to California again and...
Just traveling. I'll be camping a lot. Take advantage of the summer.
Awesome. Yeah. What about you? What will you be doing for the next few weeks?
I'm headed up to Idaho for the summer. But by the time this comes out, I'll be back.
My kids will be back in school. We'll be in the middle of, yeah, because we go back to school early here at the end of July because they do what's called modified year round because the summer is so hot here.
Kids can't really even be outside. So they do longer fall and spring breaks and a shorter summer.
I just don't know. I just feel like August is so summer.
It's just summer. August is so summer. My kids are in school all of August.
It's incredible to me. I just can't see.
I can't see it. I can't see it. But anyways, all right.
There are some benefits to it anyways. What are we getting into today?
Yeah, we're getting into grammar. So we had a really good question about future tenses.
We're going to share that answer and give you lots of examples because we use both of these all the time at work.
Yeah. And we love these simple grammar questions, right?
They're not simple when we see them in conversation and connection, right?
But we try to break it down for you guys and make them something you can handle and you can do.
All right. Yes. Absolutely. You want to read the question first, Lindsay?
So Rogan from Saudi Arabia says, thank you so much for your amazing podcast.
I have a simple question. What is the difference between I will read a book and I will be reading?
I hope you success. I wish you success. I'm Rogan from Saudi.
Nice. Awesome. Such a great question. And yeah, this grammar is really important in business English because when you're talking about the future tense, this is something that is a little glaring for native speakers, whether you use future simple or future continuous.
So we'll share when you would use either one.
Don't stress too much about it. It's not the end of the world to make a mistake like this.
But if you want to add a little bit of polish to your business English grammar, this is a good way to do it.
Add a little polish. I like it. I think a lot of our listeners do because it does matter the words we use, especially in some kind of a business meeting.
If we meet clients for the first time in person, let's say, it does matter.
So let's up our grammar game today, Aubrey.
Yes. Absolutely. So let's first dive into future simple, which is the example where he said, I will read a book, right?
This is the future simple tense. It's an action that will begin and end in the future.
Let's share a couple examples. Okay. So for example, it'll be hard, but we can do it.
Right. Yes. And you'll notice Lindsay said it all.
We rarely will slow down enough to say it will be hard.
We're almost always going to create this contraction and say it'll or we'll or I'll.
Yeah, there's just no time. There's no time.
Maybe other podcasts will teach you it will be hard.
But we speak real English here, guys. OK, so this is what we're getting.
Yes, what's the second example? In this presentation, I'll cover a variety of topics.
So that is, of course, I will cover. But it takes too long to say that.
I'm just going to say, even in a presentation, this is quite formal.
I still would use a contraction. I'll cover a variety of topics.
Yeah. Because this is not the example of a contraction that's in any way slangy.
It's just literally a useful contraction because we speak quickly and fluently.
Exactly. Right. So it's pretty basic when you think about future simple, right?
These are actions in the future. There's a clear beginning and end, both of which happen in the future.
It gets a little trickier when we start to think about, okay, why would I say that instead of future continuous, the second one we'll talk about.
And that's where this example, I will be reading a book.
Yeah. So let's get into this a little bit more.
Right. So what how is this different? I mean, how is it different?
Yeah. Future continuous is an action that is happening over a period of time in the future.
So if you're going to say, I will be reading a book, you would continue that sentence.
Right. I will be reading a book when you arrive later.
Right. There's for some reason you're wanting to share that it's something happening over a continued period of time.
And we know what the time is. Yeah, exactly.
Right. Often they both work. We're both just talking about the future.
When we make it continuous by having that verb ing, it's because there's some reason that we need to specify that that action is going to happen over an extended period of time.
Okay, so let's give some examples and maybe we can go into the context a bit more.
So first example, we'll be spending most of the meeting on the first two agenda items.
And so Aubrey, why is this one, we will be?
Yeah, and this both could be accurate here.
You for sure could say, we'll spend most of the meeting on the first two agenda items, right?
But for future continuous also works because this is going to happen over a period of time.
So the good news here is that often both are correct.
Native English speakers will sort of flip back and forth between either, and it's not a very glaring error.
I mean, the key there is just what you said, guys, for connection and fluency, flipping back and forth and making that, you know, don't just ignore this and say, oh, I can just use will.
No, you should try to use both. That is a sign of that getting to that 99%, you know, high advanced level of English is being able to flip back and forth.
Exactly. And this next example, they will be traveling for five days.
This would sound just a little off to me to say they will travel for five days because it's something that's happening over an extended period of time.
I'm sharing that it's going to happen for five days.
So I would naturally use future continuous there.
Right. And if I if I make it future simple, it feels sort of disjointed.
Yeah, it feels it doesn't feel natural or native when we say that just will alone.
Right. It just feels like a mistake. Exactly.
So that's when whenever you're talking about the future and you're talking about something that will happen over an extended period of time, especially if you share that amount of time over.
Yeah. you know, five days or four months, that's when you're going to use this future continuous.
They will be traveling for some time, right?
They'll be eating for 10 minutes. So don't arrive too late, something like that, right?
We're sharing the amount of time it will continue.
And what if we don't know the duration of time?
Like if it's unimportant or we don't know it, what do we do then?
Yeah, that's where we'll see either be used, I think, right?
If you're not clear on the time, like here's some examples you can use either when the duration of time is unknown, like we'll meet at four for happy hour.
How else could we say that? Or we'll be meeting at four for happy hour.
Yeah, exactly. So we don't know if everyone's going to arrive right at four.
This could be something just the meeting, everyone meeting up could take a little time if people are late.
So there's ambiguity there. So either would work.
Yeah. Sometimes I also think about this, the future continuous, when the plans are just a little more set in stone, you know, almost like if I go on a tour, like if I had had a tour in Egypt, a big tour guide, we'll be having dinner in the hotel lobby at six and then we'll be watching the sunset over the Nile.
Right. So it's something is set in stone as a plan.
Yes, you're almost narrating like what's going to happen in the future.
And these things are going to have a duration of time.
And because it's set in stone, I love it to think of it that way.
That's when we're using future continuous.
Yeah, I like that. That's a good way to think of it.
So tours, plans, itineraries, things like that.
You might often hear this future continuous instead of just the future simple.
Yeah. The slumber party for five is now 10.
Just tap target. Better get more glitzy nail polish and pancake mix.
You tap a same day order and it's off to find those extra pillows.
Delivery when you want it. Just tap target.
Okay. Role play time, Aubrey. Our listeners love our role plays.
So let's do this. Awesome. So you and I are in a planning meeting at work for this role play.
All right, here we go. All right, I'll start us out.
We'll only need about 15 minutes for this.
Okay, sounds great. And we'll be talking about tasks for this next week.
Yep, exactly. We'll go over schedules and map everything out.
And will we be having these planning meetings weekly?
The plan is we will meet at least monthly and then more often if needed.
All right. So let's break this down here for our listeners.
So you said first, we'll only need about 15 minutes.
Instead of saying, we'll only be meeting...
Yeah, this is what we would say that because sometimes you might hear someone say, Oh, we'll only be needing 15 minutes.
But usually we wouldn't because you're adding extra words, right?
Extra words, extra work. Yeah, grammar might work, but we just wouldn't take the extra time.
Exactly. And then I said, Okay, that sounds great.
And we'll be talking about tasks for next week for this next week, right?
A question. Yes. And you could say, we'll talk about tasks for this next week, right?
This is there's a little ambiguity here, because we're not specifying how long it would last.
But it also is accurate to use future continuous because there will be a duration of time, right?
We'll be talking about tasks for this next week.
Yeah. And for summary, going back to what I said about the more set in stone, it just feels a little more structured when I say that.
And we'll be talking about this next week or we'll talk about this and we'll be talking about it.
It's almost like it's in the plan, I think.
Yes, it's set in stone, right? I'm asking like what's set in stone here.
So I'm using future continuous. Yeah. Yeah.
What else? And then I said, we'll go over schedules and map everything out.
So this is future simple. It's an action that's going to start and be completed in the future.
So it makes sense to just use future simple tense.
And then talking about over a period of time, will we be having these meetings regularly?
Or sorry, weekly? Weekly, exactly. And that's, we definitely would use future continuous because we're setting it in stone, but over a certain period of time in the future that we'll have definite continuity.
Yeah. And that's clear. You can have a weekly meeting that you can count on at your work every week.
You know that's on your calendar, right?
Yeah. And then the last one I said, we'll meet at least monthly.
And as I read this role play, I read it out, we will meet.
And it felt so foreign to me. I just wouldn't.
In our regular speech, we just always use that contraction.
The plan is we'll meet at least monthly.
Right. OK, good. And could you say the plan is we'll be meeting at least month?
Just add more words and it's not necessary there.
Right, exactly. That often, I feel like that's a really good takeaway here is that often both will be correct, right?
There is a little bit of ambiguity of which one is right whenever something is a continuous action in the future.
And often in that case, we would just use the shorter version, right?
Hmm. I like that. I like that. So go for what's easy and just try to be clear.
And the most important thing, this is where connection, not perfection really comes in.
Don't get tripped up. Don't break the eye contact with the person you're talking with.
Trying to think of the right one to use.
That would be the worst case scenario in our opinion at All Ears English.
Absolutely. Right. And you might be a little surprised to hear that for something like this, often native speakers will switch back and forth, will use one or the other without even recognizing or caring.
So you can do the same. It's not going to break the connection.
They're not going to hear it as a grammar error.
So definitely this is a great place in business English where you can focus more on the connection.
Yeah, I mean, this is a good place for kind of a trite phrase, right?
That you hear on those, you know, those signs you buy at Target that says what you focus on expands, right?
So if we're spending our time in this business interaction, maybe it's our first, let's say our first week at a new workplace.
If we're focusing so much on that grammar, getting that right, will we be meeting next week?
Will we meet? Oh my gosh, you're missing important moments as you're getting to know your colleagues for the first time.
But if you're focusing on connecting with them, that becomes your source of success.
Absolutely. Yes. So good. I'm glad you guys have these details about when we use future simple and future continuous, but especially that you have this takeaway of like, what's more important that you get that exactly right.
There's not a big enough difference here for you to let it break the connection.
Yes. Love it. Let's end right there on that one.
Aubrey, you have a good rest of your week and I'll talk to you very soon.
Awesome. See you next time. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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