Will/going to

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

I have a question over will and going to.

The excercise I am looking at is asking students to choose between the following:

Will life be / Is life going to be better in the future?

What will you / or are you doing tomorrow evening?

I know it's a pretty simple question but I am unsure what rules apply to will/going to for questions. The students have to decide the appropriate form.

Any help would be great thank you yours unsure again

[gwendolinest]

Both are used to describe events that are expected to take place in the future. I don’t think there are any hard & fast rules for when to use which, but I’d say that the “to be going to” fom is more often used if you think the event is going to happen shortly in the future.

This is more or less the case in languages such as French and Spanish, in which the “to be going to” construction is also found. It’s probably the same in English.

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[Red5]

Any help would be great thank you yours unsure again

Hi there,

Have you considered registering with this forum? Have you already done so and forgotten (I notice there is a member called Mr Unsure)

Aside from being free and easy to do, it allows you to use all of the forum features, and gives you a number very useful benefits over simply being a guest.

Regards,

[Anonymous]

I would just add that "will" expresses more a sense of urgency or importance than "to be going to". Using "will" sounds more definite, as in a prediction we are sure of and can also refer to intentions.

"to be going to" This functions in the same way, but when we use it, to me, it doesn't sound like as strong a statement as a statement with "will".




I will do that now. I'll do that now.

I'm going to do that now.

Both have the same meaning, but the one with "will" sounds more emphatic, or like a stronger statement.

However, no one makes a conscious choice about which one to use. It just comes out in the natural flow of speech.