I've been brushing up on my grammar recently (guys: I expect you to buy me a drink every time you successfully use that line on a girl in a bar), and I've come across a small annoyance I simply can't resolve.
Normally these things are simply a lack of understanding on my part, rather than a fundamental crack in a system - and any thoughts/comments would be appreciated:
"I will sit" - Future simple
"I am sitting" - Present simple progressive (whoops)
"I am going to Egypt in a couple of weeks" - ...?
Looks like the present, but extremely commonly used to indicate future plans. I can't even see any potentially implied clauses that would help.
So?
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Tenses - Help Me
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"I am going to..." is, as far as I know, a construction borrowed from French. Anyway, isn't "sitting" in your example an adjective? The present simple is "I sit." Well, it might not be an adjective, but it doesn't look like present simple.
Sorry, entirely correct, 'I am sitting' is present progressive :)
I'm intrigued to see if anyone else has an opinion on the borrowing from the French. It's not something I came across when learning that language...
My friend (an English teacher) says "I am going to" is the present continuous tense (used as a future tense) under certain conditions:
* it is not used for official purposes
* the subject of the sentence must be a person, not a thing
* the present continuous tense can't be used to predict a future event or action, based on a present event or action.
* static verbs are not used
http://www.english-the-easy-way.com/Future_Tense/Present_Continuous_Tense_Future_Tense%20.html
I think the link with French is that "I am going to (a destination)" literally translates as "I go to (a destination)" - the present tense.
e.g. Je vais au Mexique
The essence of that article appears to be: "This present tense may colloquially & informally be used as a future tense, given some clarification".
I don't think we'll get better than that, but the derivation of this colloquialism is still interesting.
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Regarding the French, I agree that "I am going" and "I go" are both "Je vais". However, as these are present tenses I don't see how that affects this. "I will go" is "J'irai" - there's a clear distinction between present and future.
Yeah, never mind the French thing, I was thinking of a completely different use of the verb "aller."
And yes, I put the period inside the quotes. So sue me :-P
I'd say it's something that's sprung up at some point for convenience - it's just a very simple or natural way to imply future time - "I will" has connotations that you're definitely going to carry out that activity, but you might say "I'm going to Egypt" as a somewhat more vague plan.
Also consider that people now say things like "I'm going to go ('gonna go') to Egypt...". Which *appears* convoluted (two 'go's, three verbs total!), but in conversation sounds natural. It's a prime example that language is a living, evolving thing driven by humans, and that you can't ever apply rules that make sense 100% of the time.
Can we put this down to poor use of English?
Shouldn't it be:
"I will be going to Egypt in a couple of weeks" ?
I'm fairly sure it should be...
it should read "I will/shall be going to egypt in a couple of weeks" which is future perfect
"I will be going" is future continuous. "I will have gone" is future perfect. "Going to" is a form of the future tense (often used when something has been planned or is definite.)
Here's a couple of references:
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/gofut.htm... See More
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_tense
Re: Mark B - "I am going [to]" is still, even according to those articles, the present continuous. It can merely be used as a form of the future tense informally where the context is obvious (see comments above).
Smigs, a lovely summation that I can't help but agree with; but I'm still going to be wary of using that in any formal writing in future.
Ian you said:
"I will go" is "J'irai" - there's a clear distinction between present and future.
However you could also correctly use "Je vais aller" for "I will go"
Another example is that a French translation of "On the weekend I'm going to sleep" (indicating future not present activity) is:
"En fin de semaine je vais dormir"
The present tense is used (informally) in French to indicate future behaviour (as it is in other romance languages). Hence the link with the use of the present continuous in English to indicate future behaviour.
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