going horse riding

Complete the following sentences with the correct tense.

Peter and I _______ (go) horse riding tomorrow. I hope it will not rain.


My kid filled in "are going" in the above sentence. However, a teacher corrected them as "will go".
Are they both correct?

Thanks.

Winwin2011 said:

Complete the following sentences with the correct tense.

Peter and I _______ (go) horse riding tomorrow. I hope it will not rain.


My kid filled in "are going" in the above sentence. However, a teacher corrected them as "will go".
Please comment!

Thanks.

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I would say "are going". I can only speak for native English speakers, but "will go" is not natural, though they are both grammatical.
If this is meant to teach the difference in usage between "are going" and "will go", the teacher has given the totally wrong answer.

Raymott said:

I would say "are going". I can only speak for native English speakers, but "will go" is not natural, though they are both grammatical.
If this is meant to teach the difference in usage between "are going" and "will go", the teacher has given the totally wrong answer.

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Thanks, Raymott.

That's a test paper. The teacher haven't taught the students that present continuous tense can be used to talk about activities happening in the near future. However, I have taught my kid about the difference between "are going" and "will".

Winwin2011 said:

Thanks, Raymott.

That's a test paper. The teacher haven't taught the students that present continuous tense can be used to talk about activities happening in the near future. However, I have taught my kid about the difference between "are going" and "will".

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In that case, the teacher is probably justified. If "are going" hasn't been taught, then "will go" is the 'right' answer, especially if the use of 'will' for the future 'tense' has just been taught. So, in the context, the teacher might be right as well as wrong.

Raymott said:

In that case, the teacher is probably justified.

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My personal view is that the teacher is not justified. If a correct form is used, even if the teacher happens not to have taught it, it is still correct.

The problem with many multiple choice and gap-fill exercises, including those created by native writers/teachers, is that is that the writer very often has one 'correct' answer in mind, and refuses to countenance any other.

My serious interest in ways of expressing the future was sparked by one sentence, George (fly) to New York next week, in an exercise in which the learner was asked to use the 'correct' form of the future. I forget now which one of the at least five possible ways of expressing the future possible in that sentence was given in the key, but I remember that there was only one. It is no wonder that learners are frequently confused, when they are so often misled.

The inclusion of the word horse makes me wonder whether the teacher composed the question, and whether he or she is a native speaker.

Peter and I will go riding tomorrow sounds quite natural to me.

probus said:

The inclusion of the word horse makes me wonder whether the teacher composed the question, and whether he or she is a native speaker.
I just assumed the teacher wasn't native, given the wrong correction. I don't see where the horse fits in. You might see it as being redundant, but "riding" could refer to bicycle or motorbike riding.

Peter and I will go riding tomorrow sounds quite natural to me.

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Yes, there are some contexts in which that would be natural. As it's presented, with "I hope it won't rain" after, this would be unnatural in AusE, as it would in most contexts even without the reference to hoping it won't rain.
But it doesn't matter how natural "will go" is. To mark "are going" as incorrect and change it to "will go" is wrong - without an ameliorating context such as we've been discussing.