The future can be expressed in several ways in English. Here are the different possibilities:
- Future Simple: will + base form of the verb
- Be Going To: am, is, are + going to + base form of the verb
- Shall: Shall + subject + base form of the verb?
- Future Progressive: will be + verbing
- Present Simple and Present Progressive with Future Meaning
Time expressions in the Future Tense
There are several time expressions that are used in all of the different forms of the future tense. They are generally used at the end of the sentence or question. The most common are: tomorrow, next week (Sunday/month/year), in two days (weeks, months years), the day after tomorrow.
Future Simple: Will + Base Form of the Verb
This form is used to:
Describe a simple action in the future:
- She‘ll write the e-mail after lunch.
- Alice won’t help us decorate for the party.
Make a prediction or give a warning:
- Don’t lift that. You‘ll hurt yourself
- If you don’t finish the bid, the boss won’t give you a raise.
Make a spontaneous decision:
- You dropped your purse. I‘ll get it.
Subject
|
will or won’t +verb
|
rest of sentence
|
Positive
|
Negative
|
I / You / We / They
He / She / It
|
will see
|
won’t see
|
you tomorrow night
|
Contractions
In general, use the contracted forms of the pronoun + will:
I will > I’ll / he will > he’ll / she will > she’ll / you will > you’ll / we will > we’ll /they will > they’ll
Ex. I’ll see you tomorrow. / You’ll get the answer by post.
Try to use the short form won’t instead of will not
Ex. I won’t see you tomorrow.
Save the long forms for when you want to create emphasis in spoken Englsih or when writing formal texts.
Ex. You will not do that again! / His hypothesis will not stand up to their criticism.
Yes/No Questions in the Future Simple
To create a question that will be answered with a yes or no, use Will (or Won’t) + subject + base form of the verb.
Will
|
subject
|
base form of the verb
|
rest of sentence
|
Will (Won’t)
|
I / You / We / They
He / She / It
|
send
|
that fax for me
|
- Will Dave burn the CD for you?
- Won’t the girls be late for the party?
Wh- Questions in the Future Simple
Wh- questions are questions that require more information in their answers. Typical wh- words are what, where, when, why, who, how, how many, how much.
To form a Wh-question use: Wh-word + will (or won’t) + subject + base
|