Future Simple
The future simple is a tense used to express future time, and often carries a connotation of willingness.
The future simple is in itself a fairly straightforward tense to explain and form.
Its usage however often creates problems to English language learners, who find it hard to know when to use will and be going to, or when to use the present continuous with a future meaning.
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Will
Form
Note that will is sometimes abbreviated to 'll in informal speech and writing.
Usage
We use will to make predictions and promises:
We can also use will when we just decide to do something (i.e. a spontaneous action):
Formally, it's used to talk about planned events:
Be Going To
Form
Usage
We use be going to to talk about planned events in the future
We also use it to talk about intentions or predictions based on what we can see or feel now:
going to go
If we use be going to with go, we get this:
This is often abbreviated to:
Will vs Be Going To
Sometimes it is difficult to choose between be going to and will:
Grammars will tell you that will is for on spot decisons, offers and predictions and that be going to is for plans intentions or obvious predictions.
Practically speaking there's little to choose between using will and be going to in many circumstances. Using will implies that we are speaking about a fact rather than an opinion but even then there are occasions when either is appropriate.
