Using Will and the Future Simple

Use of the simple future is confusing for learners since they hear the simple progressive used a lot in everyday speech. There are a good few teachers that approach the differences in the uses so that will is not confused with something that suggests something used to express an activity done in the now or in the near future. The problem for learners is in understanding what Anglophones intend by immediate future.

The future simple uses will and shall as auxiliaries but in Canada and the US, shall has largely fallen into disuse because it is associated with formality and speech has become informal over the last few decades. Still “shall” can be distinguished from “will” especially when one wants to offer to do something for someone else as in “Shall I open window for you?”

Will is often used when one is determined to do something in the future and this is often a key word for the learner in knowing it difference from the present continuous tense. What the speaker should intend by determination is a last minute decision that he has made to act upon an event that has occurred a moment before. So if your wife calls out of the blue and needs a lift, it is opportune to say immediately: “Wait there and I’ll pick you up.”

The future simple is often used in first conditional forms and that means it is used in a form that depends on a present condition. Another way of understanding this use of the simple future is that the phrase, which has it, is a consequence of a present event. Such is the case in the oft-used example: “If it rains, I’ll take an umbrella.”

Will is also used to express facts that are going to occur such as an event or anniversary: He will be 25 this October “This does not mean that one cannot express the same statement using going to as on: “He is going to be 25 this October.” The difference in the last statement there is the sense of predictability when using the gerund follow by the infinitive.