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Originally Posted by Clare James  I'm curious - In French are there any other ways of expressing the future other than using the future verb form? |
Yes. For example, the French use "aller" ("to go") in much the same way that we use "going to": "Je vais manger" means, literally, "I am going to eat".
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For example, in English we have lexical ways to talk about the future as well as grammatical structures: 'He was on the point of leaving...', 'The train is just about to go...'
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Well, those sentences actually describe a present situation: "he is on the point of leaving" means that he has put on his coat and shoes, and is right now saying his goodbyes and preparing to leave. My French is rusty, but I seem to remember that the French construction would be "sur le point de", which would be a direct word-for-word translation of "on the point of".