• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Welcome!
  • Contact David
Get into English

Get into English

ESL Online English Teacher

  • Home
  • Welcome!
  • Contact

Expressing Future Time: Plans & Arrangements

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Del
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Flattr
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • ManageWP.org
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • Yummly
business woman searching for a job in an offic...
job search – woman from Crestock Image Library

Afew of my students had been a little confused recently when we looked at future forms in class. I think it’s partly because some grammar books and coursebook writers give rules which are either not true or not fully accurate, ultimately adding to the confusion. So my aim here in the next few posts is to clarify things for you.

First, there is no ‘future tense’ in English. In fact, we have a variety of forms to choose from when we want to refer to events in the future or ‘post-present’.

The forms that we choose depend on how we see the future event. The grammatical form which we use depends on things like our mood, how we feel about the future event,  how objective or subjective or neutral we want to be, and on factors such as our sense of obligation, hope and certainty.

If you’re not sure what I mean, let’s start with a very practical example:

Communicating your Plans and Arrangements

Look at the following sentences. Which ‘tense’ do we use for talking about our plans and arrangements?

I’m having dinner with John tonight.
I’m catching up with Kelly tomorrow.
Next week I’m heading off to Berlin for a few days.
I’m finally seeing that film tonight.

As you can see, we use the Present Continuous (or ‘present progressive’) when we refer to our plans. This confuses some students because they were taught that the future is either ‘WILL’ or ‘GOING TO’. It’s not!

Second, textbooks often say it’s ‘present continuous for the future’, which gets students to think English is chaotic with its rules and exceptions.

Actually, if you look at when we use the present continuous you’ll see that using it for your future plans is part of the rule, not part of an exception.

What do I mean here? We use the present continuous when we see an event as being temporary. We see it as having a start and an end, and we expect this process or time between beginning and end to be temporary. ie this time will end!

eg “I’m reading a book by Thomas Swamp at the moment.”
Here the person may have started the book last week, and is now in the process of reading it, and expects to finish it next week. Or next month. All up, this is an action in progress.

Likewise, when we make our plans, we see this as an action in progress. How? Maybe last night I wrote in my diary “film – Sunday 7.30”. So this was the beginning of this temporary period.

Now imagine my friend Angelina calls me up and asks:

“What are you doing on Sunday?”

I’ll reply: “I’m seeing a film.”

I see this whole process as beginning when I wrote down in my diary last night “film – Sunday” and I see this as ending when the film finishes.

So whether we use present continuous to refer to what we’re doing now or ‘for the future’, it’s the same rule.

To summarise

When we talk about things in the future that we have already planned and arranged to do, we use the present continuous. We often use only small selection of verbs to communicate this. eg go out; see; visit; meet; stay; come; go; have.

-> I’m going out on Friday.
I’m seeing Tiffiny at 2 o’clock.
I’m visiting family at the weekend.
I’m meeting Mr Obama in front of Tesco.
I’m staying with Julie this weekend.

GOING TO + verb

Of course here GOING TO + verb is also fine:
I’m going to meet Mr Obama in front of Tesco.

However it would not be correct to say: *I go to meet Mr Obama” or * “I meet Mr Obama in front of Tesco.”
(the only main note on this is that this is becoming more acceptable in Text English, when you’re using your mobile phone and you want to use fewer characters)

Timetabled Events

Compare: “I’m taking Amanda Righetti to the cinema tonight. The film starts at 7:30.”

We see our plans as being temporary – the plan will begin when we write it down into our diary and then end when we’ve completed the whole action. However in the case of timetabled events, we see these as being permanent and therefore we use the present simple.

eg “The train arrives at 5am.”
“The flight leaves tonight at 7pm.”
“The bus leaves in five minutes’, so hurry up!”
“The play is at the Cameron Theatre and starts at 8pm.”

We see these as being permanent because these events are written on an official timetable and are the same week in, week out.

How was this article for you? Was it the right level for you? Please feel free to leave a comment below!

Next time we’ll look at making predictions with WILL and GOING TO, talk about when to use ‘LL and how we express our hopes obligations.

Further reading for teachers:
R.A. Close A teacher’s grammar LTP (1992)
Martin Parrot Grammar for English language teachers Cambridge University Press (200)

Further reading for students:
Michael Swan Practical English Usage Oxford University Press (1996)
nb this book now has a much more recent student’s edition

Share this:

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Gabriela says

    January 27, 2011 at 13:23

    One could think that future tenses belong to more simple English grammar categories. But not at all.
    Now I know that if I want to meet Mr Obama in front of Tesco I have to write it down in my diary. Then, I’m definitely meeting him. How easy! 🙂

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      January 27, 2011 at 17:14

      That’s great – you’re definitely meeting Mr Obama 🙂

      Btw as a language junkie Gabriela you might wanna check out this link: -> http://gu.com/p/2mkdb/tw You can watch Obama’s recent speech and follow the text at the same time.

      Reply
  2. Monika says

    February 5, 2011 at 18:20

    Great explanation David! I hope I can finally remember these tricky rules 🙂 Now I know I have to say “I’m meeting Mr. Right tomorrow” instead of “I’m going to meet Mr. Right tomorrow”. How easy:-)

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      February 5, 2011 at 22:05

      Haha 🙂 Well, you CAN say “I’m going to meet Mr Right tomorrow” if that’s your intention.

      If you know he’s Mr Right, and you put your date in your diary then you can say to your jealous girlfriends: “I’m meeting Mr Right tomorrow.”

      Hmm, is meeting Miss Right easy?

      Reply
  3. kasun chamara (Sri lanka) says

    December 15, 2011 at 06:19

    Thanks a lot teacher. It was a great one for me..

    Reply
  4. Andrés Jara says

    November 24, 2012 at 03:50

    It has been very helpful, I’ve got a presentation about this topic on monday and I think I’m a little more ready to explain it 🙂

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      December 2, 2012 at 13:56

      Hi Andrés thanks for visiting and I hope your presentation went well. Are you a teacher?

      Best wishes

      David

      Reply
  5. shady says

    October 19, 2017 at 15:14

    thank you very much sir it was very helpful

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      October 19, 2017 at 19:30

      Hi and thanks for reading the blog today! This is an old post but there’s a bit here on plans: http://getintoenglish.com/talking-about-plans-for-summer/
      David

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. “How about next Sunday?” – plans and arrangements — Get into English says:
    September 20, 2011 at 23:23

    […] Expressing future time: plans and arrangements Phrases for emailing […]

    Reply
  2. Telephone Bingo - phrases for calling a friend — Get into English says:
    September 26, 2011 at 22:04

    […] Expressing future time: plans and arrangements […]

    Reply
  3. “How about next Sunday?” – plans and arrangements says:
    April 5, 2012 at 15:36

    […] Expressing future time: plans and arrangements Phrases for emailing […]

    Reply
  4. What are you up to this summer? – talking about your plans says:
    June 15, 2012 at 12:42

    […] if you are talking about your plans and arrangements (which have already been made) we often use ‘going to’ or the present continuous […]

    Reply
  5. The ‘present continuous’ – phrases & use in everyday conversation — Get into English says:
    December 14, 2013 at 12:41

    […] Expressing future time The present simple in everyday conversation […]

    Reply

What do you think? Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

E-mail Newsletter

More to See

Transform Your English In 2019!

December 29, 2018 By David Sweetnam

“So How Come You Have Two Cars?” – English Expression

December 11, 2017 By David Sweetnam

ELICOS Courses: How To Get Make Quicker Progress?

December 4, 2017 By David Sweetnam

Speaking Exam Phrasebook – Giving Your Opinion

March 18, 2017 By David Sweetnam

Talking Books – Materials For Teachers

December 4, 2016 By David Sweetnam

Film Conversation Questions – For Teachers

September 23, 2016 By David Sweetnam

Urban Scenes On Instagram

June 3, 2016 By David Sweetnam

Footer

Text Widget

This is an example of a text widget which can be used to describe a particular service. You can also use other widgets in this location.

Examples of widgets that can be placed here in the footer are a calendar, latest tweets, recent comments, recent posts, search form, tag cloud or more.

Sample Link.

Recent

  • English Vocabulary for Corona – COVID-19
  • Transform Your English In 2019!
  • “So How Come You Have Two Cars?” – English Expression
  • ELICOS Courses: How To Get Make Quicker Progress?
  • Speaking Exam Phrasebook – Giving Your Opinion

Search

© 2009–2023 · David Sweetnam Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.