Future: Will

 

The most common way to talk about things and events in the future is to use the verb ‘will’.

 

To form the Future tense with will, we use will (’ll) + the verb (base form without ‘to’):

 

Singular	Plural
I will (’ll) sing You’ll sing He/she/it’ll sing	We’ll sing You’ll sing They’ll sing

 

We can use ‘will’ in English in several ways:

 

1) to make a prediction about what you think is going to happen – even if there is no firm evidence for that prediction

•  Mary’s preparing for her exam. I believe she will do very well tomorrow.
•  Wait a few minutes. I think it will stop raining soon.

 

2) to offer to do something

•  You look tired. We’ll make you a cup of coffee.
•  Is that the phone? I’ll answer it.

 

3) when making a promise:

•  Don’t worry, mom, I’ll be careful.
•  We will be there by eight, I promise.

 

4) to describe a quick decision that you have made at the time of speaking:

•  Oh, it’s raining! I’ll take my umbrella.
•  What would you like? — I’ll have a tea, please.

 

To make negative statements with ‘will’, we use:

 

  will not (won’t) +the verb (base form without ‘to’):

 

Singular	Plural
I will not (won’t) eat You won’t eat He/she/it won’t eat	We won’t eat You won’t eat They won’t eat

•  It’s too late; I won’t go through that park.
•  That’s a very big pizza. We won’t finish it.
•  Pete is in New York. He will not travel to Brazil with us.

 

To make questions with ‘will’, we rearrange the word order and use:

 

  will + subject +the verb (base form without ‘to’):

 

Singular	Plural
Will I be fine? Will you be fine? Will he/she/it be fine?	Will we be fine? Will you be fine? Will they be fine?

•  Patrick finally dared to ask: “Will you marry me, Cindy?”
•  This cake looks very small. Will it be enough for all of us?

 

We can use ‘shall’ instead of ‘will’ when asking for a decision, making polite offers or suggestions, or in more formal situations.

 

We form questions with ‘shall’ like this:

 

  (question word) + shall + subject + the verb (base form without ‘to’):

 

Note: We can start the question with ‘shall’ and no question word if it is not required.

 

Singular	Plural
Shall I visit? Shall you visit? Shall he/she/it visit?	Shall we visit? Shall you visit? Shall they visit?

 

•  When shall I meet you?
•  What film shall we see?

 

• Shall we have a cup of tea?
• That’s a good idea.

 

•  You look tired. Shall I drive?
•  We shall go there together.