This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2442.
Avoid the wall of formality with this future grammar. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish .com forward slash subscribe.
When you ask someone about their upcoming plans, you have at least three tenses to choose from.
Today we break down three grammar tenses for the future to show what they mean for your conversations and connection.
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Hey, Aubrey. What's going on?
I am great. How are you, Lindsay?
Good. you have any fun plans doing anything fun this weekend yes i'm headed to rocky point mexico this is one of our favorite family travel destinations close to phoenix very kid -friendly i can't wait oh that's amazing that sounds so fun i hope you have a great little trip sounds fantastic yeah what are we getting into in today's episode aubry so it's interesting you asked me that question are you doing anything fun this weekend because you're asking me about the future but you're using the present.
Yeah, that's kind of confusing, right?
And we do this all the time.
So we got a great question about this.
I'm excited to dive into it.
Do you want to read the question for us, Lindsay?
Yes, here we go. This is from Asami.
Hi, Lindsay, Michelle and Aubrey.
I'm Asami from Tokyo, Japan.
I just want to say a big thank you to all of you for creating such an amazing show and for answering my questions questions before.
Well, thank you, Asami, for sending in your questions.
Yes. Thank you for that.
I love that. When my questions were answered, I couldn't help but jump with excitement and tell the people around me.
I love that. That's fantastic.
I felt that way. I've sent questions into podcasts and I'm so excited to send it to everyone I know.
Wow. Yes. That's great.
I've never sent a question to a podcast. I should start doing it.
That's so cool. Today, I have another question since I couldn't find an episode about this.
I'm not sure how to use the future continuous tense correctly?
I heard the following sentences on your show before and I'm not sure why they use the future continuous instead of the simple future tense.
So for example, she heard. I don't think I will be spending much time with her.
We will be closing the office today.
Hopefully the sun will be shining there.
I would really appreciate if you guys could clarify the difference between the future tense and the future continuous tense.
Love you you guys best Asami?
Wonderful. Such a great question.
Yes. And I have a feeling listening to this question that all of our listeners out there are like, yes, I also wondered that, or like there's a light bulb moment here.
We're like, yes, I want to know.
This is great. Absolutely.
So we are all here ready for the answer.
And we're going to, we're not going to not only give you the answer, but we're going to talk about what it means for connection, which we do in all of our episodes.
We bring everything back to connection, not perfection, connection, human connection.
So, if you love our style, which is a little different than your average podcast, go ahead and hit the follow button right now on the show.
Right, Aubrey? Exactly, Rae.
You don't want to miss any of these awesome episodes, grammar, vocab, lots of strategies and tips, but all about how you can use it to connect in English.
Exactly. All right.
So, let's go straight to our answer for Asami and all of our other listeners.
Aubrey, where do we start today?
Yeah. So, we are going to share the three most common ways that we talk about the future future simple and future progressive or future continuous which asami mentioned and also present progressive which we also use a lot to actually talk about the future yeah so let's dive in first with future simple okay so usually or sometimes native speakers will prefer this over the future progressive tense why aubry well because it is more flexible and versatile.
So especially if you are talking about actions that will occur at a specific time, you will be limited.
You can't use the future progressive.
So for often, if you need a default, future simple is what you want.
If you're talking about future plans, predictions, spontaneous decisions.
So let's give a few examples when we would use the future simple.
Okay. We'll see what happens, right?
Dot, dot, dot. right this is sort of a prediction like we wouldn't say we'll be seeing what happens right we're using the present simple for this it's more of a general true statement about the future or they'll meet us at the restaurant at seven good okay yeah straightforward exactly right pretty straightforward if if in doubt usually future simple is going to be your go -to it's more flexible than future progressive all right but then moving into future progressive we do have lot of options, Aubree, when it comes to the future.
We really do. And we use future progressive a ton.
All of those examples Asami gave, we use them for situations where an action will be ongoing at a certain point in the future, and this is often done to emphasize the duration of the action.
Okay, so, for example, I don't think I'll be spending much time with her.
So, talking about an ongoing action or a lack of action in this case, right?
Right. And if you think about, you could use future simple and say, I don't think I will spend much time with her but then we use future progressive to Emphasize that that would be an ongoing action.
Mm -hmm, or we will be closing the office today Now this is at an unspecified time if it's specified.
How would it change?
Yeah, so because we're not specifying the time we're sort of talking in general about the day We will be closing today.
But if you give a time you make it specific that's when you'd need the future simple we will close the office at 5 p .m. Now, the trick here is native speakers often will still use future progressive here, right?
We still need to say, we will be closing at 5 p .m. today.
So this is a little bit no rhyme or reason.
Both are accepted. Often when you're talking about the future, it's not so much about right or wrong.
It's about what feels right to someone based on their regional dialect, based on what they're used to hearing.
Yeah. I mean, it's sometimes sometimes thinking about something that is solidified as a plan in the future, right?
We'll be closing today at 5.
Definitely I feel like native speakers say that.
It's something that's a little more planned ahead in a sense, don't you think Aubrey?
Versus, oh, I think we'll close today at 5.
A little bit more spontaneous, right?
Yes. Interesting. The spontaneity of it often will also affect which verb tense we choose.
Okay. What's another example for future progressive so this one's interesting you might say and this was um these are asami's examples so kind of talking about why we would choose future progressive there the third one was hopefully the sun will be shining there because it's an ongoing action right the sun wouldn't just shine for a moment and then be done likely yeah so this is definitely correct to use future progressive of course future simple would work as well hopefully the sun will shine while we're in mexico but yeah progressive also works because it's an ongoing action yeah and maybe it's
the base of another sentence like hopefully the sun will be shining when we arrive there you could say right right so is your name continued action yes love that okay then we're still another choice there is still a third option exactly like what you used when you asked me about the upcoming weekend we use the present progressive really often to talk about the future especially to to ask someone about the future.
So often if we're asking about plans or arrangements that will occur in the future and are definite, and especially in casual conversations, we'll use present progressive.
This one also feels to me to be the most casual.
The most conversational, wouldn't you say?
Yeah. Absolutely, yes, casual, conversational, especially if you're trying to create that connection between people.
You don't want to create a wall of formality.
You often do this. Just use present progressive to be really friendly and build that connection.
Ooh, I love what you just said, a wall of formality.
That's really an interesting term, right?
To think about, to imagine for our listeners, we don't wanna be creating that, you're right, and that's why we look at the most connected phrases and this is probably the recommendation out of these three options, right?
So are you doing anything fun this weekend, right?
Again, just like at the top of the show.
Yeah, what have you got going on later, right?
These are actually in present progressive, they're so friendly, casual.
It's interesting how you definitely will see native speakers use future progressive, also future simple.
But if you start paying attention to language, especially questions about what someone's doing in the near future, they're likely, if they're trying to build that connection and be less formal and more friendly, they might use present progressive.
Wow, super interesting how our grammar choices can have a major effect on how well -connected we become, right?
Absolutely. Yeah. Imagine this.
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Okay, Aubrey, let's see this in a role play here, all these different options.
So here we are discussing our weekend plans.
There you go. Perfect, I'll start us out.
Hey, Lindsay, what are you doing this weekend?
I'm meeting my cousin on Saturday.
We're going to a concert.
What about you? I'll be visiting my grandparents on Sunday.
oh fun where do they live they live near the coast so I'll probably spend some time at the beach too do you stay with them when you visit no we'll stay at my cousin's place nice all right so here I think we probably used all of the options yes right yeah all right so let's break it down yes alright so I first asked what are you doing this weekend using the present progressive and there is that wall of formality it's slight but it's there if I say what will you be doing this weekend or what will you do this weekend because it's just normal enough of a structure that I'm creating formality between us.
Yep. So we take kind of, if we imagine we're facing someone and we take one step back in terms of distance, in terms of not being as connected and there is a time and a place for that, right?
Sure. Exactly. Because the relationship might be more formal.
If you're asking a supervisor, a boss or someone you don't know well about their weekend plans, Right.
Then you might opt for future simple or future progressive.
None of them are grammatically wrong, but it's really interesting to think about the effect on what you're implying about the relationship you have. Exactly.
And then I answered with present progressive.
So I said, I'm meeting my cousin on Saturday.
We're going to a concert.
Right. So I'm meeting my cousin.
my cousin. And it's interesting.
We can say, I will meet my cousin, right?
We could use future simple, but we'll often opt for present progressive as well, again, to create this informality, not grammatically incorrect to use one of these other future tenses, but you're sort of bringing me with you to talk about what you'll be doing and making it present progressive.
I guess not grammatically incorrect, but a little weird. If we say, I will meet my cousin on Saturday.
It feels, like we said, overly formal, the wall of formality.
It feels not appropriate for the conversation.
You know what I mean?
Really interesting.
Or that we're going to a concert?
Right? We will go to a concert.
We will be going to a concert.
They're not grammatically wrong, but it's interesting.
They're quite a bit more formal for a conversation.
Yes, yes. All right.
And then you said, I'll be visiting my parents on Sunday.
Now we're using the future progresso.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, interesting.
And you could use present progressive.
I could say, oh, I'm visiting my parent, my grandparents on Sunday, even more informal.
But you know, this is especially future progressive isn't that much more formal, right?
It's definitely not incorrect, which is why it's tricky for all of you out there listening when you hear native speakers use all of these different tenses.
Yeah, it can be confusing.
But it's interesting to think about.
You don't want to just think about what's grammatically correct when you're thinking about why a native speaker would choose which one.
Maybe it's about formality.
Yeah. I mean, for our listeners, you all are ready for that.
You're at that level, B2, C1, maybe high B1.
You're ready to move beyond what's grammatically correct.
You already know that to some extent.
And now what brings you closer to connection, right?
Yes. And so here, present progressive isn't much more formal.
I can say, I'll be visiting my grandparents instead of I'm visiting my grandparents, but it would sound quite quite formal to use future simple.
I will visit my grandparents on Sunday, even though I'm defining when on Sunday, it still is quite formal to use future simple here.
Yeah. I don't like the future simple here.
I don't know. When we're talking about future plans that are near and that are going to happen for extended period of time, it sounds a little strange to use future simple.
But when we think about things that are spontaneous, like we mentioned or unexpected, expected, we do flip in to the future simple.
So here we said they live near the coast. You asked me where they live.
You said they live near the coast. So I'll probably spend some time at the beach. Probably usually goes with future simple, doesn't it, Aubrey?
Exactly right. Because this is spontaneous plans might or might not happen.
So you could say I'll probably be spending some time at the beach, but you can definitely use future simple here for these hypothetical potential and spontaneous actions.
I'll spend some time, so I will spend some time.
I'll probably spend some time.
And then what did I say after that?
And you asked, do you stay with them when you visit?
So present progressive here could also say, are you staying with them while you're there, right?
You could use present continuous, both very interchangeable here.
Right. And this is more about habits, right?
We're not even talking about this time.
We're saying in general, every time you you stay with them?
Do you every time you visit them?
Do you stay with them?
Or do you stay in a hotel?
Right? That's a really good point.
Because then that does change the meaning a little bit.
If you are talking more about every time you go, it makes more sense to use present progressive.
If you're asking about this time, then present or then future progressive, right?
And I kind of answered a different question.
I so you in my mind, I asked you about on a a repetitive basis.
Every time you go, do you stay with them?
But you answered about this time.
Don't you think? This is interesting.
And I think this happens a lot in conversations, right?
Where sometimes because there's ambiguity in the tense, they might misunderstand what you asked, right?
I kind of answered a different question.
I was sort of answered as if you were asking about this trip.
And then you could clarify and be like, do you always stay there?
Or is that what you always do?
Or you could just let it go.
Right, exactly. So either way, we do understand each other, but sometimes native speakers don't answer the question you ask.
And that would be a great episode too.
Probably, right? Yeah, that's a good point.
Should you say something or should you let it go?
That's interesting.
Interesting. Aubrey, what does this mean for connection?
What's our takeaway today?
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is we don't just stick to future simple.
We use future simple, future progressive, and even present progressive, especially if we want to be more friendly more informal when we're talking to her in casual conversation yeah as we've gotten our money's worth today for sure heavy hitting grammar episode I love it guys remember the wall of formality like Aubrey said I seek to find that connection depending on the scenario can you be even more casual if the scenario merits it can you use the right kind of grammar at the right time yes that's often the best way to build connection.
If your grammar and your vocabulary can bring down that wall of formality and create a more friendly, more casual connection.
Love it. So good, guys.
Hit the follow button if you love our style.
Connection, not perfection.
Aubrey, I'll see you soon.
Yep. See you next time.
All right. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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